


Human Behaviour

by vegarin



Category: Generation Kill, True Blood (TV)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Pining, Sexual Violence, Trauma, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:00:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24913516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegarin/pseuds/vegarin
Summary: When Nate vanishes in the middle of Louisiana, Brad goes in search for his former CO. Eric recognizes the fatal symptoms of boredom in his immortal existence, and Nate is having a difficult week.
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Nate Fick/Eric Northman
Comments: 59
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series (or thereabouts) for True Blood, and post-series for GK. Please heed the warning for graphic violence.

* * *

* * *

**i.**

The night is slowly settling on the streets of Shreveport, Louisiana, when Brad Colbert steps out of the airport. He adjusts his backpack as he watches the sunset over the cityscape. The dark feels predatory, but this isn't an enemy territory. At least not yet.

He heads directly to the police office handing the missing person's case, only to be instructed by the sergeant manning the front desk to fill out a form elaborating the nature of his query. Brad waits for two hours and thirty-five minutes for the lead detective assigned to the case.

Brad wants to get his hands on the police report and finds out how much progress has been made, which is the only reason he waits, even though time is one thing he doesn't have. Precisely at the thirty-six minute mark, he picks up his bag and leaves.

Bright, festive colors are everywhere on the streets, and Brad easily fades into the blooming night crowds to find the nearest available cafe. Once he does, he parks at a corner and fires up his laptop. Another email from Mike Wynn does not provide any insight to the answer he's looking for, only a vague starting point, and he needs to recon. The location is too open, not ideal for this type of operation, but if he could make do during the Muwafaqiyah clusterfuck, he can manage in a medium-sized city in the United States of fucking America.

Three hours later, Brad has the basics. Nathaniel Fick has one debit and two credit cards—MasterCard and Visa, always paid full on time. His spending patterns reflect his status as a graduate student right down to the last penny. Most of what he has is spent on rent, utilities and groceries, and whatever little that's left buys him books and—of course—regular donations to charities. The status of the deposit account is a little more difficult to ascertain, but he manages to guess the password on the seventh try: his niece's birth date. There's been no recent withdrawal. The last time any of the cards was used was nine days ago, to check into a motel about ten blocks down from the conference center.

So, probably not a robbery gone wrong. It's still a possibility, but even on a bad day a former recon Marine isn't the easiest person there is to rob. Accidents are far more plausible.

When the local newspapers yield no results, Brad starts on the hospital and morgue records. He goes through them systematically, methodically, one by one. He looks at the descriptions of John Does and their pictures. For the ones without any records, he makes a few brief phone calls and asks around on any unidentified corpses in the city morgue or patients without any record. There is no match.

There's no relief, no lassitude. The recon's over, but no one just fucking _vanishes_ without a trace.

Brad collects his things and goes on a hunt for that trace.

* * *

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Look, I've already told the cops—"

Brad repeats the question, slowly and clipped, "The last time you saw him?"

At the look on his face, the receptionist, who doesn't seem old enough to be drinking anywhere in the States let alone manage a small motel, finally relents. "A week ago. I think I've seen him leaving in the evening, but can't say if he returned that night or not."

"And why is that?" It takes a serious effort on Brad's part to keep his voice level.

The girl seems to shrink in on herself. "We don't have an automated check-in system. We just have, you know, normal keys, so we don't keep track of people coming and going."

"You don't have a working CCTV system in this motel?" Brad asks, even though he's already assessed the AO and seen the cameras at the gate as well as the only backdoor the building has.

"Oh, we do. One at the entrance, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have come in through the back, and the camera there's been acting up. He was supposed to check-out next day, but he didn't show up, and Renee—that's the cleaning girl—said no one seemed to have come back to the room the night before."

Brad doesn't put a lot of stock on the abilities of the local police at this point, but he assumes the cops would have at least checked out the videos and verified the story, even just to go through the motions for a low-priority case such as this. If there has been anything amiss, the Ficks would have been notified, but no one has been notified of any new development as of yet.

No one currently knows where Nate is.

"Look, I'm sorry I can't help you anymore than that," the receptionist offers haltingly. "I really don't know what's happened to him."

She appears sincere, but Brad wants to throttle someone, and since he doesn't have a specific candidate in mind yet, this girl is fast moving up on the ladder. "Thanks for your time."

He stops at the entrance and reconsiders. Turns around again. "Which room did he stay in?"

Five minutes later, Brad walks into the room that no one else has been staying since Nate. He drops his bag by the bed and walks across the room to the large balcony. The motel is ancient and in disrepair, but it affords a decent view of the main streets.

The conference center is fifteen minutes away into the better side of the town. It was Brad's first stop, before he retraced the steps to the motel, studied the streets and put together a tentative picture of what it would have been like seven days ago. It doesn't help.

Brad has collected most of the timeline and the corresponding events. Nate's sister has already talked to all of his classmates who had attended the conference with him. After presenting his paper, Nate begged out early after Wednesday's session without joining them for a drink after, which was the last time anyone's seen him. He didn't show up for the last day of the conference and even missed one session for which he was supposed to be a panel member.

Assuming all of this is true, Nate has been gone since that night, when he walked out of the motel without any of his things.

Seven days. Anything could have happened in seven days.

Brad's fist curls up against the rusted metal railing under his hands. He turns his back to the streets of Shreveport that provide him with no answers.

His nickname, Iceman, has been assigned to him for a reason. He does not panic. And here he is now. This isn't him, this panic in his heart isn't him, and this orbiting around Nate—

And why now? Why now, after all this time? Now, orbiting around Nate is even worse.

Because Nate isn't here.

* * *

"Right, the Fick case. And you are—"

"A friend of the family," Brad answers flatly. It's not a lie. Not necessarily.

The detective assigned to the case, Johnson, flips through the file. "Right, well, nothing has reported that involves anyone fitting that description. If there's been any incident, we would've been made aware of it by now."

Since that is something Brad's already managed to find out, by himself, within three hours flat, the detective so far is not installing a lot of confidence in Brad. "What else do you have on his disappearance?"

"Mr. Colbert, the real issue is that he's a grown man, and the usual possibilities have been already checked out, like robberies and vehicle accidents. He's a student, at—" Johnson checks his file, "—Kennedy School of Government at Harvard?" He whistles. "Well, given his resume, it's not implausible he's cracked under pressure, in which case, he will reemerge elsewhere. We've seen many cases like this. It's quite common."

Brad has seen Nate Fick voluntarily jump out of a tin-plated Humvee so he could dive into the enemy forces that were baptizing them with bullets. No, fuck it, surviving _Schwetje_ for a week alone builds you tolerance for stress to last a lifetime. He doesn't tell this _detective_ any of that. "You think he cracked under pressure and left town," Brad fails to keep incredulity and vehemence out from his voice, "without any of his things."

"Well, he seems to have taken his wallet with him, at least. We're keeping taps on his cards, and we _are_ doing everything that we can. Look, Mr. Colbert, I sympathize with your situation. I truly do. But we don't have the manpower just to go simply looking, and there is nothing you can do at this point but wait for new leads."

When Brad says nothing in response, Johnson presses on, cheerily oblivious, "Look, it's Mardi Gras. Maybe he lost the track of time, you know?"

Brad doesn't dignify that with a response. Fury in his chest barely subsides by the time he returns to the motel, and it takes most of his strength to keep it locked it somewhere in his chest, not to project it to some random bystanders.

None of this, none of this feels right. Experience has proven his instinct to be more accurate than any decent Blue Force Tracker, and this is usually about when Brad would start loading his M-4 and checking for extra ammo. This is all _wrong_ and he cannot figure out why.

And Nate is still out there somewhere.

Fury is still in his gut. And now, so is this fear. 

He returns to the room and makes a few more calls.

* * *

Sergeant Glen Hogan of the Shreveport Police is a heavy-set, genial man in his forties, and the best help Brad could find after activating and shaking down the US Marine version of the contact tree. "You're _the_ Iceman," Glen says, looking thoroughly impressed. "Jimmy talks about you all the time. Said you are the shit. I was sure he was making shit up, but here you are."

"How's Trombley?" Brad asks, mostly just to be polite.

"Great, he's just great. He's almost done with the academy, trying to become a cop. Oh, and he's got a baby coming, too."

There are a number of things that are disturbing in this conversation. Brad cannot decide which tops: the fact Trombley is going around telling the glorified tales of Iraq clusterfucks that include stories of Brad, that there's a Trombley junior about to walk this world, that Trombley will be a fucking gun-wielding cop loose in the unsuspecting populace, or that knowing Trombley actually came in handy for once in Brad's life.

"Can't quite remember where, but feels like I've seen you somewhere," Glen continues, a frown making its way to his face. "Well, probably in the pictures Jimmy brought home."

Glen doesn't seem entirely too convinced, and Brad doesn't really care. Brad explains the details of the case, and Glen surprises him by asking the right questions and taking down the right type of notes.

"Not hard to see why the missing persons wouldn't be all that invested," Glen says, once he digests the most of the information. "Doesn't sound like a priority, what with it being a madhouse out there right now. Will be for a little while even after the last krewes put on the show."

Brad can see where this is heading. Fuck it, if he has to do this alone, he will. "Sorry if I took too much of your time."

Glen surprises him again by shaking his head. "If my nephew asks me to help you in any way possible, you've got my help, no matter what. So, at this point, the best guess is maybe he went out for a bite, went for a walk, sight-seeing, and somehow found trouble. Is he the type who would attract one?"

Brad has been considering this, too. "He's the type to try to stop one, if he encounters any."

"Can he handle himself in a fight?"

Brad's fairly sure he's heard more ridiculous questions in his day, but he can't think of one right now. "He was a _recon_ Marine." 

"Right, sure." Glen nods sheepishly. "Hard to imagine he would've gone down quietly if something did happen, in which case we would've heard something. Where was he staying again?"

Brad points at a dot on the map that Glen displays on screen. Glen frowns again. "What is it?" Brad asks, almost resentful at himself for actually sounding hopeful.

Glen taps at the screen. "That's fairly close to a local hangout. A bit notorious one, called Fangtasia."

"Fang _tasia_?" It's the kind of a retarded name that maybe only Ray could possibly come up with. "What, some sort of a fetish club?"

Glen looks grim. "You could say that."

"That isn't his type of place."

Glen raises an eyebrow. "Knew your CO that well, did you?" At Brad's look, Glen puts his hands up in a placating gesture. "Not saying your man had to have a predilection for that sort of stuff, here. Things just tend to happen around this particular joint, is all."

Brad allows himself to consider the possibility. "Drugs?"

"Nothing illegal that we know of. Nothing that we can pin down on them, at any rate. It attracts a certain type of crowds that know things. Let's just say it's always a good idea checking with 'em for info on missing persons cases."

It sounds like a flimsy lead at best, but Brad has nothing else to go on with. He grasps at it like a drowning man would with straws. "What's the next move? Walk right in and ask?"

"There're some calls I can make," Glen suggests, not entirely without hesitation. "Then yes, hell, I suppose we can go barreling in and see what comes out of the end."

Glen reaches for the phone, and then turns to Brad again. "Hey, you didn't happen to bring your sidearm with you, did you?"

* * *

* * *

**ii.**

"Eric, uh, the tap's run dry."

Eric is in the middle of sipping O-Negative straight from the source when Ginger interrupts him. He weighs an annoyed look he'll undoubtedly earn from Pam against the instant gratification of ripping off Ginger's head from her shoulders. Maybe tonight is the night he will finally end the piteous excuse for a human being that is Ginger, but then again, Pam is not wrong: a good help is difficult to find. At least, in this century.

"Eric?" Ginger mouses, twisting her short apron that's decidedly longer than her skirt.

He pushes off from the artfully writhing body laid out under him and bites out, "Then _order_ more."

"Um, sure. Okay, Eric. Right away."

Ginger whimpers pathetically at his expression before running off to the kitchen. That display kills what little appetite he has left, so he pulls away from the warm and eager arms of the third woman who has offered herself to him tonight. They have been all so willing.

All _too_ willing. Perhaps that's the problem. Hunger still coils at his stomach, unabated, along with a sense of sheer boredom.

The girl follows him up and purrs against his shoulder. "Baby, was I good for you?"

He flicks away her fingers from his shoulder. "No."

He quells the beginning of the girl's outraged whine with one glance of Glamour, mostly as an afterthought. She stills into a perfect example of taxidermy except for slow, rhythmic blinking of her eyes, while he licks her shoulder clean of the droplets of blood. Before leaving her on the couch, he takes away her memory of the last hour.

His club is full tonight, he notes with satisfaction. There's little room to maneuver on the floor, but wherever he goes, the crowds give him a wide berth, both humans and vampires alike, confirming that the survival instinct is one of the few things that remain when humans turn into his kind.

"Eric."

Pam, behind the bar, taps her perfectly-manicured nails on the marble surface, wanting and getting Eric's attention. She looks less than thrilled. "A call for you," she tells him once he reaches her side. "Nan Flanagan."

His expression alone would have had everyone else run off in fright; Pam, however, shrugs it away with practiced ease. "She _simply_ insists on talking to you directly," she says, making a show of cleaning her nails. "Who am I to tell her otherwise?"

A good help _is_ difficult to find, Eric reminds himself before snatching the phone away from Pam. He takes a second to smooth his voice before he answers, "Nan, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

 _"Eric Northman,"_ Nan shrieks, _"do you_ truly _understand we've reached the demarcation point in the history of our kind?"_

He controls the sudden desire to reap into the phone and tear something off, preferably one of Nan Flanagan's limbs. "I understand True Blood is ready to be unveiled to the public."

 _"And so is the American Vampire League, as well as our_ existence _. We're about to be presented to the world as a minority with the rights. Do you understand its ramifications? The enormity of it? This monumental event may never come together if the incidents like the one from a few days ago continue to happen,_ if _you cannot control your people as the Sheriff. You're_ supposed _to ascertain that some random slaughter doesn't come into the public view!"_

"Ah," Eric says languidly. "Am I then, in your view, negligent with my duties as the Sheriff of Area Five?"

There is a long pause as Nan assesses the implicit threat.

"Of course," Eric unveils nothing but courtesy in his voice, "you are free to bring your complaint up to the Magister whenever you wish."

There's another significant pause. _"Eric, we're reaching a turning point in our history,"_ Nan persists, but her thin, shrilly voice has been toned down a notch. _"Control your people, and I'll control mine. Until the announcements are made, we must lay low. Fly under the radar."_

"And?"

_"And what?"_

"I'm waiting," he drawls, "for you to regale me with more of your clichés."

Nan stutters a beginning of an indignant reply, but he hangs up before her screeching reaches a discernible level of irritation.

Vampire bureaucrats. There's an irony.

To be fair, this "coming out" plan itself is not necessarily without any merit. Played right, this may turn out to be an effective way of controlling the supply-and-demand issue in this so-called contemporary world. Mingle with humans, not to co-exist but to subvert from within. There's the millennium-old military strategist in him debating the idea, possibly somewhat intrigued. The plan had been a long time coming: there are humans who are in the know, so when the public at large reacts to the revelation, positive reactions that his kind has seeded and planted would counter the dismay and shock. It isn't entirely without its risks, but it's nonetheless a worthwhile option to explore for the long run, for the propagation of his kind.

On a more personal level, he welcomes the challenge. A thousand years of existence has left little that could constitute as a challenge, and he has to get what little amusement where he can find it. A new political climate may abate some of his boredom, if not all.

There's a trial bottle of True Blood on the bar. The artificial blood that, in theory, would enable the vampires to co-exist with humans.

Eric tilts the bottle with his index finger until it tips over. It shatters on the granite floor, bleeding red.

Noise. All of this is just a noise.

Pam notices his mood, but wisely restrains from commenting. This type of mood, they both know, perpetuates itself until it becomes an unmitigated disaster of a PR nightmare that Nan Flanagan is so fearful of. Or, it may be a sign that he'll become a morose recluse for a century or so. A case in point: Godric. There's no salvation for their kind, or so Eric's Maker would have him believe. So what, then, is the ultimate point of existence?

Morbid thoughts. Or what passes for morbid for a thousand-year-old vampire. He recognizes the fatal symptoms of boredom. If this continues on, it _will_ be an unmitigated disaster.

Distractions. He's thinking of distractions.

Or, one distraction in particular.

"That human," Pam starts, confirming that yes, she can read his moods better than anyone alive or undead. "Do you plan to keep that boy around for long?"

Pam rarely interferes with or displays any real interest in Eric's hobbies, as she herself usually finds humans detestable, but she does care about housekeeping a great deal, which amuses him. "Now, now, where's your sense of curiosity, Pam? A human resisting Glamour?"

Pam makes a face. "I admit it's rather baffling, but Eric, it doesn't _not_ happen, and it rarely warrants this much interest from you."

True. A human resisting Glamour has been seen before—not a lot, but it does happen. Still, this one is a normal human without any hint of otherness in the blood. Utterly, almost appallingly normal. And he's a pleasant, and possibly the only, distraction that Eric has right now.

"Besides," Pam adds pointedly, "people are already looking for him."

Of course Pam has been keeping tabs on the local police. She's never needed to be told—one of many reasons why he's fond of her. "Oh?"

"A missing person's report was filed only a day after. Nothing there to lead the search to us, per se—"

"Just as it should be."

"—but it doesn't mean it won't." Pam senses his attention is already elsewhere and sighs extravagantly. "Fine, Eric, you're allowed to enjoy your diversions. Just don't make me remind you later the body needs to be disposed of, _clean_ , before anyone comes around to look. If I have to remove blood stains from the floor on a short notice again, I'll be cranky."

"Well, now." Eric grins slowly, indulgent of her petulance. "We can't possibly have _that_ , can we?"

A couple of centuries ago, or even decades ago, this wouldn't have been an issue. Now they're relegated to worrying about corpse disposal methods. The modern world has its drawbacks.

But it also comes with indoor plumbing. Fair is fair.

Eric swats off the flies of human followers gathering around him before he slowly makes his way over to a secluded room at the farthest corner of the club that's been shielded from the public. He could've put the human in the basement, where they usually keep their livestock, but the basement isn't really conducive to the entertainment that he has in mind.

The only occupant of the room is slumped against the bedframe, slipped into a fitful sleep. Eric can tell the second the human is startled awake—the sound of his breathing halts and then quickens.

Eric stands over the bed and watches a pair of eyes flutter open, watches recognition tear its way into them. The heart begins to beat faster, pumping more blood into his veins, but there are no apparent signs of hysterics, no outward shows of fear in those eyes. They flicker at the sight of Eric, but only for a second. It's quite an impressive display of self-control.

It's also rather disrespectful, thinks Eric.

Eric grabs the man's neck in one hand and slams the body into the mattress. He doesn't quite yet dislocate the human's right arm, which has been shackled to the foot of the bed and drawn taut across the metal frame, only because he's feeling rather magnanimous tonight.

And Eric's benevolence brings its own reward. Given a little more room to maneuver, the human's free hand goes unerringly for Eric's jugular. This isn't as successfully executed as the first time the man had tried it on Eric, but Eric decides not to hold it against him. It's still entertaining enough, and a human can't be expected to be on the top form all the time, especially with more injuries than before. The blow doesn't quite have the same strength behind it, either, and Eric easily catches the arm with one hand.

And for all his troubles, Eric breaks two of the fragile human fingers.

This elicits a pained gasp, but not a scream. The human's heart, in fact, is screaming, but no more sound trickles out between those white, bloodless lips.

Now, this is plain insulting.

Eric doesn't take disappointments well. It's a notable character flaw. Eric straddles the body and crushes the neck slowly until only the barest of breaths can escape. When the pulse under his fingertips turns erratic, Eric eases the grip and tears open the brittle flesh of the human's neck with his teeth until it wrings another gasp and a shudder, and then a choked scream.

Somewhat appeased, Eric leisurely nips at the blood-smeared skin. With the other hand, Eric traces the outline of the body underneath him, hard enough to feel the bones and bruise the ribs. There are scars on this body that Eric hasn't caused. Curiosity rears its head. As does hunger. Excellent.

"Stop being so interesting," Eric murmurs, and presses marks onto the pale skin with his teeth and fingernails, covering the existing scars with new ones. "And I may let you go."

The body beneath Eric begins to tremble, which doesn't surprise Eric until he realizes it's not from panic or shock—but a laugh. A quiet and subdued one, but a laugh nonetheless. "You'll have to forgive me," the human says, his quiet voice just as always tinged with polite irony, "if I am less than inclined to trust your words for it."

Eric grins against the hollow of the human collarbone. As far as diversions go, this is delightfully, almost shockingly, perfect. A human that dares to talk back to him is hard to come by, let alone a human who actually speaks in complete, grammatically-correct sentences. "It's a rather ill-advised move on your part, Nathaniel, trying to hurt my feelings again."

"Possibly," the human muses. "But it's difficult to care about your feelings when you've shown a clear disregard for mine."

Oh, Eric does enjoy a challenge as much as its rewards. "I suppose then I should _persuade_ you to care." Eric reaches up to clasp his fingers around the base of the human's neck before smashing his head against the headboard. Once. Twice. The human doesn't quite whimper, but after the second blow, he winces and screws his eyes shut. That won't do. Eric twines his fingers between the sandy hair and yanks until the green eyes finally manage to focus on Eric's again. "Nathaniel, _Nathaniel_ , pay attention. Now, that really was not quite a polite way to respond to the hospitality I've shown, is it?"

"I didn't realize you were waiting for my show of gratitude," the human says, voice not quite shaken as it should've been. "You seem occupied with hearing your own voice."

Through the thin layer of the skin, Eric can hear the erratic beats of the human heart. The neck continues to bleed beautifully, there's a bruise forming at the temple, but the eyes looking back at Eric are calm. Eric contemplates prying him open completely until it reveals the blood and gore in all its glory, until that determined, resolute _calm_ in those eyes become nothing more than a mere memory.

But then it is a novelty, this steadfastness. What kind of a self-respecting vampire would he be if he doesn't take his time with sullying it?

"You are, of course, not wrong," Eric concedes easily, "as I do have a great fondness for my own voice." With one hand, Eric slowly squeezes the man's broken fingers together until the calm completely bleeds out from the green eyes. With his other hand, Eric digs into the hinges of the human's jaws until the mouth is pried open so more sounds are allowed to escape. "Still, I think I rather enjoy hearing _your_ voice."

Then Eric sinks his teeth on the vulnerable, cool skin just over the carotid artery.

The human doesn't quite manage to suppress the scream this time.

Pain, accompanied by fear or sexual frenzy, always tastes better than any other undulated human state. Eric eventually untangles his teeth from the pallid skin, sated and satisfied. The human huddles in on himself, one arm wrenched in an odd angle and the other limp against the mattress.

He trembles again. No laugh this time.

Hunger and boredom, both abated for the moment, loosen their claws from Eric's chest.

* * *

* * *

**iii.**

Nate has seen and experienced certain things that, for other people, may be quite impossible to believe. Up until this week, however, all of them have involved different and varying degrees of human stupidity in action. This, what's happening now—this is something else entirely. Something he cannot fathom nor explain based on the depth of his learning or experience.

He doesn't have anything to set the broken bones in his hand with, and it's unlikely setting them would do much good at this point. The heat of pain radiates from his neck and hand and spreads agonizingly slowly that it's nearly incapacitating.

He feels drained. He winces at how apt that description actually is.

He pulls at the metal cusp on his right wrist, but by this point it's an empty gesture equivalent of hoping for a miracle. He's already tried and found that no amount of force he could exert would tear it loose. He's also tried to pull apart the wireframe of the bed instead of the manacle itself, and neither gave an inch.

And even that strategy is not without some serious flaws. Once he's free, he still has the locked room to deal with. And outside the room, he assumes, is also Eric Northman. And it's proven more than once Nate cannot fight his way out, not with this Eric who wears Brad's face, who looks at Nate with Brad's eyes.

No, Brad Colbert doesn't belong in this reality where everything oscillates between the surreal and the horrifying so devastatingly quickly.

Nate needs a way out. If there isn't one, he has to make one, because soon he wouldn't have enough strength to carry out any decent plan he might come up with. But now, even the mere act of breathing seems to take everything out of him, staying conscious is a struggle.

And it turns out to be a losing one.

* * *

Twilight was blanketing the streets of Shreveport, Louisiana, when Nate returned to his motel room from the conference hall.

Most of the other students opted to stay in the hotel where the conference was taking place, but Nate's own choice was a small, almost dilapidated motel at the far corner of the city. It suited his needs well enough, especially his particular desire to be _away_ after eight hours sequestered in a spacious, beige-white conference room with well-mannered, soft-spoken policymakers and would-be future heads of the government.

He dropped the backpack at the corner of his room and sank onto a chair nearby. He rested his head against the wall. After a moment, he breathed in once and took out the conference binder and reviewed the previous sessions instead of recalling the message Mike had sent.

Perhaps as somewhat expected, rereading the dry, technical materials on strategic advantages in trade treaties as a means of conflict resolutions did nothing to alleviate the pressure forming in the back of his head. The stale air of the conference room was still clinging onto every part of his skin, and the sudden desire to shake it off won over probably more logical, practical desires—shower, dinner, sleep—so he slipped into a pair of sweats and stepped out for a run.

Through the corridor and down the winding staircase that must have seen its better days right around the World War II, Nate passed by the receptionist behind an old mahogany desk that would have unlikely seen its better days any time before the last century. The lobby was empty saved for the receptionist and an old woman hunched over an armchair next to the door.

Shreveport, even in near darkness, was lit with life. Mardi Gras was officially a week away, yet festivity was already in full swings. A few of the classmates had wanted to explore the city after the conference, citing some strange and exciting times to be had in Shreveport. Everything about the city felt surprisingly old, and normally he would enjoy exploring any new place he was visiting, but just then he wasn't in the mood to play a tourist.

He slowly jogged down several blocks, consciously avoiding busy districts filled with crowds. He purposefully emptied his thoughts and concentrated on counting his steps and regulating his breathing. It worked well, for a while, until he had to stop to tie one of his loosened shoelaces and break his rhythm, along with his thoughts.

Thoughts, not governed, inevitably returned to Mike's call the night before.

Nate had never served with Brent Morel, but he had known Captain Morel was good enough to serve as a platoon leader of any Recon Marines unit. He'd known that Brent would be good enough to lead the Marines. Good enough to lead his, Nate's, Marines.

And that Brent was now dead. Killed in action.

Pappy was injured, but recovering. No one else in his platoon— _former_ platoon—was hurt.

Brent was still dead.

Nate felt untethered from the choices. The choices he'd made, those he could never undo.

He pushed himself to run through quieter streets and corners of unfamiliar alleys, until his breaths caught in his chest and pulsed through every inch of the body, burning and wiping off every thought in his head. He stopped only when the muscles spasms held him up and he had to lean against a wall to steady himself.

He needed to go back. He needed to book an early flight back after the conference. He needed to attend the funeral and face his men again.

It took a second to recall the map he'd studied the night before arriving at this city, another second to place himself—about twenty blocks down west from the motel. Never a good idea to lose the sight of himself, to lose his steps in an unknown city.

He was about to backtrack when he heard the noise that made him turn and step toward an alley between two grey warehouses. He caught a flash of silver at the corner of his eye, and the dark shadows in the shapes of people. One prone woman and two standing men, and the sliver of silver—a knife, not a muzzle flash of a pistol, he assessed quickly—held by those two men.

He didn't think twice. "Hey!"

His shout diverted the attention of the attackers onto him, which achieved what he'd set out to do—stopping the attack at least momentarily. What wasn't as optional was now the two men, whose movements did not seem drunk-stupid, were advancing toward him.

— _A pretty fuckin' retarded move, LT. It's the kind of shit only white-ass boys like you would pull, walking straight into a totally unknown situation, weaponless to boot. You sure you didn't lose all the brain cells at the fancy school?_ —

Nate didn't even want to take a guess as to why the warning voice in his head suddenly started to resemble Espera's. He risked a glance at the woman on the ground—he could see her arms move, so she was alive. The priority was getting her help, so he held up his hands in his best non-threatening gesture. He was painfully aware that he normally looked as intimidating as _a high school kid on his first fucking field trip,_ as Espera once put it. "Look, I just called the—"

He didn't even get to the word _police_ ; one of the men lunged at Nate, the knife aimed at his chest.

Absurdly, as he twisted the knife out of the man's grip, Nate felt a distinct sense of a déjà vu: one of his moments at Pendleton, first assigned to Bravo Platoon, his every move seemingly observed and evaluated by his men as he had tried pretty pathetically to hide the eagerness to prove himself. The second man launched himself at Nate and threw him off balance, but Nate easily twisted his upper torso out of the grasp. The man went down flailing and stumbled on the broken pieces of furniture piled at the end of the alleyway. The other man, now weaponless, frantically tried to drag his friend away from Nate.

"Shit. _Shit_ ," the first man stuttered, "let's just go! It's not worth it."

They scrambled away, and Nate didn't pursue them. The woman had a bleeding gash on her arm, and there were angry red lines around her neck, marked by blood, as if they had been trying to chock her with her own necklace. Even in the shady lamplight, he could see the deadly pale face. When he touched her arm, her body rocked with sudden convulsions, every movement apparently in sizzling agony.

He didn't think his decidedly basic first aid skills would be of any use here. He was halfway up trying to call for help when two bodies were hurled past him and crashed against the wall behind him. Nate whirled around and watched as they slid off the wall and crumbled on the ground. The two attackers were strewn at Nate's feet. Their legs twitched—still alive then, though barely.

 _Ragdolls_ , Nate thought suddenly, _thrown away on a whim of a wayward child_.

Before he could move, a shadow fell over them. A blond woman was now standing over the two bodies, staring down with a look of utter distaste. She huffed as she glared at her shoes covered with dark stains. "I _just_ bought this pair," she said plaintively before turning to Nate. With a hand on her hip, she drawled, "Well, what do we have here?"

This, all of this, felt— _wrong_. He had not seen her enter the alley; he had not seen her _move_. And these men—had she just flung a couple of two hundred pound men against the wall? Still, Nate managed to pull together some facsimile of calm. "She was attacked by those men. She requires immediate medical attention—"

"My, my, my, aren't you a gentleman?" A slanted grin on the woman's pale face blossomed into a full, wide-teeth smile. "That's so sweet of you and all, but no need to worry your pretty little head, honey. She'll be just fine."

She stalked over and, with her gloved hand, picked up the gleaming necklace draped on the girl's chest. The necklace hissed as it was disentangled from the girl's neck. The red mark instantly healed, flesh seemingly growing over itself.

Even as Nate watched in disbelief, the girl sat up immediately and groaned, "Oh, damned the blood hunters." 

By the time she straightened up, the bloody scars on her arm and neck were completely gone. The girl ran her eyes down at herself and stared quizzically at the blood trails smeared on her arm before she started licking at the blood.

"Tell me what happened first," the woman ordered. "Eat later."

The girl obediently turned to the woman. "V-hunters cornered me, had stakes and silver chains and knives—big and also coated with silver, too, and they almost had me, but then"—she licked her lips and flashed a bloody grin at Nate—"then he appeared and saved me."

The woman considered Nate for a moment before turning to the girl. "Get back to the club and report to the Sheriff."

"Yes, Pam." The girl was deferential, fearful even, which did little to ease Nate's mind.

"See?" the woman—Pam—said to Nate after the girl beat a hasty retreat. Her grin was wide and glittery, even friendly. "All better, quick as that."

"Yes," Nate heard himself say the words, "I can see that." Staying calm and not descending into hysteria was proving to be difficult, but Nate had had a fair share of experience with suppressing the fight-or-flight instinct and assessing a given situation quickly. Fight, clearly, wasn't a wise option.

But flight no longer became an option, either, when he turned and found Brad Colbert leaning against the side of the building and observing the spectacle with something akin to amusement.

Gunnery Sergeant Brad Colbert should be currently in Baghdad. So he couldn't here, Nate told himself, sauntering into the alleyway in slow, unhurried steps.

No matter what Nate told himself, his eyes told him otherwise, even though Nate was now becoming more viscerally aware that this wasn't, _couldn't,_ actually be Brad. Even without the telltale sign of the clothes he was pretty sure Brad would never be caught dead wearing, there was the distinct lack of warmth in the eyes that told Nate everything he should know.

This was not Brad Colbert.

"Eric," Pam addressed the man and pointed at the long elaborate leather boots she was wearing, "my boots were sacrificed in the line of duty."

"My condolences," the man—Eric—said. If there had been any doubt left, that voice eradicated it. There was a lilt in this voice that didn't belong to Brad, one that Nate couldn't even place. Eric tilted his head at the bodies, and the gesture and the movement, too, were completely alien to Nate. "They were indeed lovely."

"You approve?" she said, though it was unclear what she was referring to, the bodies or the shoes.

"Very." Eric turned to the side and flicked a glance at Nate. "And this?"

The man's eyes were the same blue Nate had found whenever he turned his head in the burning white of the desert. The same gaze he'd never failed to meet with his own sand-stung eyes because—now, now he may admit it—when every second of being in command stole the very last bit of his breath and every leg he could stand on, after those precarious, precious moments, he could suddenly breathe and march forward again.

Those same eyes were now appraising Nate, void of any emotion or recognition. Nate fought a sudden, inarticulate sense of betrayal.

"This here is a Good Samaritan," Pam answered Eric, and took a few steps closer to Nate, accompanied by crisp staccatos of her heels. "You sure are pretty. What's your name, honey?"

She didn't actually wait for his answer; or, perhaps it wasn't even required. A blow-like force, one he hadn't seen coming, punched Nate in his chest, and he hit his head against the wall behind him. By the time Nate struggled to pull himself up, Pam already had his wallet fished out from his back pocket.

"Nathaniel Fick, twenty-seven, hails from Boston, studious, tourist, wrong place, wrong time." She tosses his various ID cards onto the ground, disregarding them rhythmically as if whoever, whatever Nate was mattered absolutely none to them. "Oh sweetie," she crooned at Nate, "you could've let the girl die, you know. We really wouldn't have minded. And now, well, this is all very so _unfortunate_ for everyone involved." At Eric's snort, she amended, "Well, all right—mostly just for you."

Nate suddenly thought he would dearly like to have a 203 round at hand.

"Eric," Pam started, tilting her head, "didn't you say the do-gooders went extinct about four decades ago? How their actions tend to be 'detrimental to maintaining longevity'?"

"A case in point," Eric said, gesturing at Nate. He was imbuing Nate with as much interest as one would with an interesting insect specimen. "So, answer me this, Nathaniel. Are you trying to become a living proof that evolution can indeed work backward? See, my one and only flaw, as Pam tells me,"—Pam rolled her eyes—"is my unbecoming curiosity in futility of human nature."

 _Human nature_. This man, this _thing_ , Eric, wanted to play games, while the blood from those two men was still smeared just a few feet from where Nate was standing.

Nate was completely out of his elements, the light-headedness was making him suspect a concussion, and it hadn't escaped his mind that at this moment he might be out of his fucking mind. But the bored indifference Nate heard in the man's voice rattled something loose in Nate in the way very few things had ever managed, so his better judgment did not actively restrain him from answering quietly, "We've already established that I meant no harm to you or your friend. I don't owe you any more answers and I certainly don't owe it to you to appease your curiosity."

— _LT, sir, that's just simply not_ on _, alienating the natives like that._ — His subconscious dredged up Ray's voice to admonish him, but Nate couldn't bring himself to regret his words when they were perfectly true to his sentiment.

He regretted them, maybe a little, when his head crashed against the wall again, this time hard enough that the impact rattled his teeth and shocked him into a brief moment of paralysis. When Nate finally found his footings and steadied himself again, Eric's arms were already planted on Nate's either side, effectively trapping him on spot.

"Now, why would you go and hurt my feelings," Eric's voice was laced with mock hurt that set Nate's teeth on edge, "when your continual survival is entirely dependent on my goodwill?

Eric's face was close enough to Nate's to feel his breath, except all the air Nate could breathe in was cold. This time Nate could not stop the shiver—wrong, so wrong, that foreign smile on this _thing_ wearing Brad's face.

His reaction didn't go unnoticed. Eric's unnatural grin was wider. 

Pam was watching from a few steps back, her arms crossed. "Now, now Eric, there is PR to think of. Those two lowlifes were hunting for V, and we have every right to dispatch them. But this boy isn't exactly a run of the mill."

At Nate's look, Pam elaborated helpfully, "Oh, honey, we can't just have people thinking we go about sucking people dry willy-nilly. We're trying to go for this whole coming-out thing soon, and it would be simply disreputable if this whole incident gets out. I'm afraid we can't let you leave."

Anger was just as pointless as hysteria, but for a moment, Nate couldn't suppress it. "Yes, I can see how a homicide would be a far superior and more viable option from a PR standpoint."

Eric flashed him a lazy grin. "A wrong word."

Nate saw it then, the thinly veiled madness behind the dark eyes that may look like his friend's but weren't, no matter how Nate wished them to be. Nate had faced madness before; he couldn't say he understood it, but he'd witnessed, far more times than he'd wished to, that slow descend, triggered by fear and desperation and hopelessness. This —this was something different, unknown and unknowable and—

— _hungry_.

Nate tried to break away from his gaze, a second too late.

A feeling of something silky soft and cool and taut slithered as it cast over him, and just as suddenly, everything around him was filtered, hazy, and pleasantly null, like the utter calm you felt submerged underwater, just seconds away from drowning.

Nate could feel Eric's icy fingers on his neck. He couldn't lift his to stop Eric.

He was not exactly certain if he wanted to.

"Homicide, one human killing another human." Eric's voice sounded far away, except it was also echoing cacophony in Nate's head. "And _that_ ," Eric whispered at his ear, " _is definitely not_ ," against his throat, " _what we're doing_ ," in his head.

There were movements around Nate: none of them registered. Teeth nicked at his neck: he didn't feel it.

"You will forget _every moment of this_ ," the voice in his head commanded, a cold hand clasped on his arm. " _You will remember nothing_."

_\--Wait. Wait._

Nate blinked, and the thin threads that seemed to tug and pull at him from all directions snapped at once.

He surfaced and gasped for air; feelings, foreign and strange, flooded back again. And just as soon as they did, he almost wished they hadn't. The searing pain at his neck came alive, vivid and paralyzing.

He lifted his heavy arm and grasped at Eric's fingers digging painfully into his neck. "Stop it," Nate said, with only the faintest of tremble in his voice. " _Right now_."

Eric froze, staring at Nate's hand on his wrist. His eyes narrowed and then snapped back at Nate's.

The effect was immediate. Nate's fingers started to numb, and the tingling began to spread all the way up to his head. Nate couldn't make himself look away.

If he couldn't look away, then he'd have to face it. Nate curled his hands into fists, digging nails into his skin. The numbness subsided, and he bit down on his lips hard enough to draw blood. He didn't break again.

Eric dropped his hand and took a step back. "Huh."

"Eric?"

He didn't take his eyes off Nate. "Yes, Pam?"

Pam, hovering over them, squinted her eyes at Nate. "Did he just?"

"Yes."

"Did he just _snap out of Glamour_?"

" _Yes_ , Pam."

"Well, what the heck is wrong with him?"

Eric looked somewhat pained. "There's nothing _wrong_ with him. He's entirely human."

"And yet?"

"And yet," Eric admitted begrudgingly, "it didn't take."

Pam shot Nate a sympathetic look. "Really, hon, this is not your night."

No, it really wasn't. Nate recalled the two bodies. And he tried to remember: _dead man walking_.

If you knew you were already dead, all that counted was what you did between.

The girl had said, she'd said— _what was it?_ It came to him, then: _stake and silver._ He didn't know how this worked, how any of this worked, how any of this could even be _real_. Nate pulled himself up, breaking one of the chairs thrown away at the corner and grasping a piece of wood. He'd been hoping to locate the knife that the one of the two attackers had dropped, but there was no time. This would have to do.

They were watching him without making a move. Pam was looking highly amused, and Eric had his arms crossed over this chest. "Really?" Eric asked. He looked so completely beleaguered that it was almost comical. "You _really_ think that's what you want to do?"

"Futility of human nature, you said," said Nate, deciding right then that he would truly like to give this Eric something to consider before another unsuspecting bystander ended up in this alley.

Nate was tensely watching for movement, but he almost missed; the piece of wood in his hand went clean through Eric's arm, not the chest. At least it was more than Nate had hoped for. It was certainly more than what Eric had expected, if the deadly look on his face was any indication. Eric swatted Nate off like some fly, and Nate landed on his back a few feet away.

Nate watched with grim satisfaction when Eric pulled the stake out from his arm with a single grip, unflinching and obviously unhurt. It was a juvenile thought, but Nate hoped it'd at least scar.

"Well, Nathaniel, we have a problem." Eric stood over him, paying little attention to his own arm dripping with blood because his eyes were on Nate. "You now have my full and undivided interest."

There was no deceit in the flat, bland tone of the voice. Not that Nate had expected any.

This time, Nate didn't even see him coming.

* * *

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed all the warnings. There are not enough warnings in the world for Eric.

* * *

* * *

**iv.**

"Who else?" Eric asks.

Corey tries to make a run for it, but before he reaches the exit of the storage room, Chow catches him by the neck and flings him against the wall. Chow, ever reliable, glares down at the young vampire like he's a bug crawling on his dinner plate. "The Sheriff," Chow snarls, "has just asked you a question."

With Chow's foot on his neck, Corey is instantly more cooperative. "N-no one. No one, Eric! Please, Eric, why would I lie to you? Why would I lie to you _now_?"

"That's true," Eric agrees, once he can bring himself to pay any attention to the tedious interrogation. The cheap fluorescent bulb, hanging precariously from the ceiling and swinging with the blast of music from the club floor outside, garners more interest than this particular process.

Corey continues to whimper on the floor, and Eric returns his full attention to the objects spread out on the desk in front of him. All of them should've been disposed of much earlier, and Pam would make her unhappiness known when she finds out, but Eric wants his curiosity satisfied.

He traces the edges of a small, rectangular photograph. It's a picture of a young couple with two small, gap-toothed children, a girl and a boy. It has a grainy feel to the touch, its edges already curling up and colors fading to sepia. There's also a faint scribble in the back: _Mommy, Daddy, Sarah and Nate_.

A photograph. Another modern invention. Around the 12th century, Eric had stopped trying to recall the colour of Aude's hair under the sun. He could never get the exact shade right, not with his mind's eye; by that point he no longer remembered what the sunlight felt like on his skin, his world already taken over by the darkness in Godric's eyes. His children's names were forgotten around the time of the Reformation.

The family photo was found carefully tucked inside the wallet, protected under a plastic cover behind the driver's license. Eric continues to inspect the rest of the wallet's content, all the artifacts of a life so human. A couple of credit cards, a few different library cards, a student ID for a fancy school. An ID card that's not like anything else: USMC. Captain. Retired.

A soldier, then. That explains a few things.

Pam enters the room with a certain amount of expected panache and reports to Eric, "It's been cleared with the Magister." When she turns to Corey, her gaze is ice. "You're to be punished for jeopardizing the safety of our kind by leaking our weaknesses to two humans and letting them harvest our blood."

Corey shrinks in on himself, sobbing tears of blood. For this display alone, Eric is sorely tempted to personally put a stake through his heart, but really, what a gigantic waste of time _that_ would be. Eric palms the photograph and stands up.

Pam turns to him. "Orders, Eric?"

"Take care of"—Eric waves at the general direction of the pathetic creature curled up in the corner—"this."

Eric doesn't stay to watch the punishment being carried out. Instead, he leaves the room and wanders along until he finds himself in another. The decor isn't exactly an improvement here either, but it's much quieter—the object of his interest is always silent in his struggles, though in this particular case Eric wouldn't terribly mind hearing a whimper or two.

And this one, of course, provides much more of a fight, even for a human. There are a few marks on the floor that haven't been around the night before, which is not at all unpredicted; the human has been looking for the way to free himself. A hunter in Eric briefly entertains the idea of letting him loose and then hunting him down again.

Maybe later.

"If you resign yourself to the permanent loss of your right hand," Eric casually observes from the doorway, "you may even succeed."

The human is leaning against the wall by the side of the bed, cradling his fractured left hand without straining his right wrist still strapped in the shackle. His torn, white shirt is still appealingly stained with blood.

"Or, you can try begging for your life," Eric suggests, suddenly feeling rather cheerful. "Beg me, promise me you'll never tell another living soul about what's transpired, that you'll never reveal my kind's weakness to anyone, if I let you go."

The human's stare, as usual, does not fail to stir Eric's desire to poke and prod, coerce and coax a different reaction. He watches Eric for another silent moment before he chooses to answer. "That would be an insult to your intelligence and mine."

Eric's eyebrow arches up on its own volition. "If not for the fact I've already warned you, I might start to think you're about to hurt my feelings again."

The human looks thoughtful, even considerate. "It does seem rather easy, hurting your feelings."

This response is, just as he's come to anticipate, composed and calm, with the barest hint of irony. Eric has methodically ravaged and dismembered both humans and vampires for far less serious transgressions than this, but Eric is not at all compelled to do away with this one.

Still, some demand for respect is not entirely unwarranted.

Eric takes a step, and two, and is granted some measure of satisfaction in the way that the human steels himself before meeting Eric's eyes. If Eric looks carefully enough, he can see some residue of the young, smiling boy— _Nate—_ from the photograph in this face still, if not in any of his expressions Eric has so far managed to extract.

Well, there's still time. He wraps his fingers around Nate's neck and hauls him up, deliberate and slow, until Nate has to strain to stay on his feet.

"Despite the evidence to the contrary, my ego is _quite_ fragile," Eric whispers at Nate's ear and tightens his grip. The pressure tears open the cut on Nate's neck and there's a sharp hiss of pain. "I might just have to kill something to soothe it, and that would be a shame. I was just beginning to enjoy our conversations."

Eric lets go when the smell of blood begins to be too tempting. Nate's free hand reaches up to the cut on his neck, but the blood is seeping through his broken fingers. It's an arresting sight, one that almost compels Eric for a taste. But the night is still young, Eric reminds himself, and there are certain pleasures in savoring things slowly.

So Eric flops down on the bed instead, sprawled on his side, and watches the human struggle to hold himself together, which is somehow fast becoming Eric's favorite pastime activity.

Nate seems to feel Eric's eyes on him. "Is that why I'm still alive?" he asks, with a slight kept-in frown. "To supply you with amusing conversations?"

Eric lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "I've grown bored of my usual company. You've met some of them, so you may imagine why." 

The frown deepens on the human's face. "I am not Scheherazade, and I'm certain you were not Shahryār in another life."

"Ah, but I wager you're just lacking proper motivations. How about I threaten to end your life come morning if I don't feel properly entertained?" Eric pauses, and reconsiders. "No, of course you wouldn't bat a single eyelash. How about the lives of your family members? Let's say, your sister's?"

That earns Eric a sharp look. Even his anger, Eric thinks, is a quiet thing, simmering just underneath without outward explosions.

Eric rather enjoys explosions, just as he's come to enjoy testing the human's cultivated, practiced restraint, so he drops a faded photograph smudged with his bloody fingerprint; it drifts onto the floor like a feather, and the human's eyes go still when they catch it. Eric continues on blithely, "Or I can throw in every single member of your extended family and make it a massacre."

The human stares him down expressionlessly, another impressive feat. Eric enjoys the feel of those eyes on him until his own weight abruptly shifts sideways—Nate has hooked his foot around Eric's knee and twists, hard, until Eric flips and rolls onto the floor. And there's a sharp knee pinning down Eric and an elbow digging into his chest.

"For someone who freely admits to being subjected to a PR game over your kind's existence, you make threats on people's lives all so easily," says Nate.

Eric looks up at the furious, still-quiet eyes, and thinks he hasn't had this much fun maybe in a couple of decades. No human who's dared to put a stake through Eric has lived past the attempt, and well, now _this_. Eric's rather glad he'd decided to make an exception on this one.

Eric takes a second to enjoy the moment, which he ends by crushing Nate against the bed and stopping just short of twisting his right arm off his shoulder.

"If you think you can actually take me down in a fight," Eric drawls out, slowly and leisurely, "maybe you're no better at using that _thing_ on your shoulders than rest of the humanity, and I should reconsider this arrangement."

Even in obvious pain, there's something like a half smile on the human's face, rueful and somewhat self-deprecating, and altogether not unappealing. "I'm not under any illusion that I can stop you from doing anything you want to do."

"Then, we're going through these motions, why exactly?" Eric feels genuinely curious. He's rarely had this much practice at exercising curiosity lately that it's beginning to feel refreshing. "Do you have any masochistic tendency that I should be making an excellent use out of?"

Nate watches Eric in silence and refuses to offer any answer.

Ah, Eric thinks. He will not bend to his will, no matter what Eric does, no matter the threats. _That_ is the point being made.

"And yet, you wouldn't acquiesce?" Not that it would end well, if he did. Eric would be disappointed, for one. And Pam wouldn't be happy about getting bloodstain out of the floor on a short notice once again.

"Would you," the human asks, voice flat, "in my position?"

And there it is, again. Eric finds that he still likes that spark of anger. There's never an overt tone of challenge in Nate's answer, but the steel running through his words bellies such a quiet tone.

The marred flesh over the human's throat marks his vulnerability in stark red, and Eric knows no man is entirely without fear. Yet the broken hand that has blood and crumbled cements under the fingernails is still curled in a fist, and his eyes do not waver under Eric's scrutiny.

Something stirs within Eric. He's only found this calm and wild—such jarring contradictions—co-existing in Godric. Wild isn't difficult to find within his kind, or even among humans: it's this calm, not ennui, that Eric cannot seek nor find anywhere else, not since his Maker's True Death.

He wants what he wants.

Eric slides a finger under Nate's head and tilts it toward him, far gentler than before. That, finally, elicits a real reaction. The human actually flinches away from the touch, and the green eyes widen a little, with a genuine note of surprise that even his impressive self-control apparently can't stifle.

"I won't give you what want," Nate says, voice tight. There's only a hint of uneasiness in it, but that's enough.

"That," Eric smiles then, "is simply not true."

The human's cracked lips taste of sweat and blood.

It tastes like a small triumph.

* * *

* * *

**v.**

The desert sun was finally dimming in the western sky, and Nate squinted against its dying light.

"There," Brad Colbert said. Nate turned his eyes to follow where his Team One Leader was pointing at, and caught a smudge of shadow over the horizon.

"I see it," said Nate, grim.

Not a long moment later, the arties drew a long arc over the sky and landed over that shadow, followed by ear-splitting explosions—familiar enough to recognize, but not familiar enough to be getting used to, even now.

A faint quake shook the ground under their feet. And then another.

Then it was over.

"Fuck," Brad murmured under his breath.

It was far too distant to inspect the damage with naked eyes, but Nate could picture just as well, without seeing, the smoldering ambers and the black ash out of the burned-out shells that used to be the village their platoon passed by just that morning. Nate fought a sudden desire to turn away from that direction.

Brad didn't look away. He never seemed to. His eyes were still on that spot over the horizon, hard and unblinking. "What are we doing here, sir?"

"The orders are to dig in for the night," Nate answered automatically. "We'll be at A'Zaminyah by tomorrow."

"I mean, what are we doing here, sir?"

Brad's question echoed in the air.

Nate could have filled the air with empty words and displace the silence. He could've recited every single operational objective, every charter, every mandate, and every excuse of what would become Operation Iraqi Freedom. Nate couldn't say: _I don't know, Brad._ He couldn't say: _I have no answers for you, Sergeant._

"We're here to do what we can, Sergeant," Nate said instead. A meager compromise of an answer.

"It's not enough," Brad said, sharper than he would have a month ago. All so frequently, there was more than just a hint of exhaustion making its way into Brad's normal voice, and Nate thought he'd just heard something more damaging than just routine anger and frustration: resignation.

By rote, Nate could have delivered a heartfelt assurance and conveyed an unshakable conviction in the values they were safeguarding. He could've delivered a Pulitzer worthy sermon on why it mattered that they were risking their lives during their every waking moment while being shot through their tin-plated Humvees.

But just then he couldn't make himself to say any word approximating such sentiment, not in the face of such searing evidence of casual indifference to human suffering. Not in the face of his Team One Leader who seemed to have, for some unfathomable reason, decided a long ago that Nate was worth respecting—the respect that always seemed to remain, even in the ever-amounting evidence of Nate's own failures.

"No, it isn't," Nate admitted. His words were soft and bitter, and more honest than it should've been allowed. He could feel Brad's eyes on his face, but the words still spilled out, anyway, unbidden. "I thought, somehow, we were better than this."

It was inexcusable, he knew. Such a display of startling naivety should've led to an immediate disqualification for him to serve as anyone's CO, let alone the most respected NCO of their platoon at his side. Nate had known that they were no better than anyone they'd been fighting, just as Brad would've known that to question what they were doing here was pointless.

"You give us far more credit than we deserve," Brad said, quiet and subdued—even restrained, in the way Brad never really was with Nate. It was an instinctive and ingrained habit for Nate's eyes to want to search out for Brad's, but this time, Nate didn't know what he would see there, if he looked up and met Brad's eyes. "We were never going to meet your expectations."

That was so profoundly wrong that Nate had to protest, unequivocally, "None of you ever failed to rise up to the highest of all expectations, mine or otherwise." The same couldn't be said for the Command or himself, but that meant little in the context of what his men had been able to accomplish in the heap of clusterfucks they'd been dealt.

Brad glanced at him again, and something seemed to have loosened in the line of his shoulders, in the tightness around his eyes. "I'm sure you'd be glad to hear, sir, that it's through no fault of your own you've ended up a misplaced idealist." His voice betrayed a hint of a smile even while sounding grave. "Your pansy-ass liberal education fed you that preposterously rosy-colored worldview bullshit for years, and I hear indoctrination from such a tender age is hard to shake."

Despite everything, a smile inadvertently threatened to slip past Nate's control. "Your lack of faith in the abilities of the Marine Corp is staggering, Sergeant," he countered, just as gravely. "You're severely underestimating USMC's capacities to counter-indoctrinate."

"Grunts, maybe," Brad conceded begrudgingly. "Officers? Hardly."

"Them's fightin' words, Brad."

"Oh, any time, sir."

The smile they shared lasted for a moment longer than it should have—longer than Nate deserved.

There might have been other words to say, Nate thought, just then. Those elusive words that always lingered between who he was and who he had needed to be. If only he could just find the strength to say them.

But the moment died just as the sun did, ending what was left of the twilight, and Brad straightened up from his position.

"Should we go dig in, sir?" Brad asked, cool and professional. Restrained again.

Nate tried not to feel the loss of levity and made himself nod, mirroring Brad's movement. "Yes, let's get started."

There were many fragments of memories Nate had collected over the days, weeks and months spent under the sizzling desert sun, just like this, those he had collected and carried with him even long after, those he'd held close through all the subsequent decisions he'd made, steps he'd taken.

It was only incidental—or maybe, inevitable—that most of them held Brad.

* * *

Nate wakes up in a clean bed in a clean room; there's no scent of blood and no sand clogging his throat, and the feel of paper sheets under his fingertips is cool and familiar. So, it's almost easy to believe that he's just fallen asleep back in his dorm room in Dartmouth while trying to finish his last paper on Sufism.

The illusion lasts for three more seconds. He opens his eyes.

He feels—diminished and hollowed out, as if his body was broken and left only with pieces that no longer fit together. His one arm is still shackled to the bedframe; he can barely lift the other hand, still treacherously numb from pain. Nothing has changed from the night before, except there is now a fresh bandage over the cuts on his neck, and some pieces of paper are strewn over the other half of the bed, crowding over the blanket covering Nate.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed in the middle of this organized chaos, mere inches away from Nate, is Eric Northman.

Fury, fear, repulsion. None of the known, catalogued emotions seems to represent what goes through Nate. Eric flicks a casual glance at Nate, and then goes back to scrutinizing a particular document before he stops to place a finger over a line.

"Pam," he says sharply, annoyance thick in his voice.

It shouldn't have been loud enough for anyone outside to hear, except the woman materializes less than a second later. And she is less than happy. " _What_ , Eric?"

Eric isn't to be cowered. "Exactly what did we say about charging personal expenses to the business account?"

"My heels were sacrificed in the line of duty." When Eric raises an eyebrow, she narrows her eyes. "You owe me."

Nate notes, with sufficient surprise, that Eric is regarding at her with what seems like affection. "Those would be your new acquisitions, then?"

Pam gestures down at the long elaborate leather boots she's sporting. "You like?"

Eric nods in approval. "Very." He then proceeds to express his appreciation for Pam's new bracelets and earrings.

After their bizarrely commonplace exchange, Pam turns to consider Nate, with a look of—not distaste, exactly, but more like puzzlement. "So, Glamour _really_ doesn't work on him."

"No," Eric agrees cheerily. "Glamour still slides right off of him. Inconvenient, that."

Pam snorts, a pointedly conspicuous sound. Nate isn't the only one who has noticed Eric seems to be immensely enjoying himself over said inconvenience.

Nate has witnessed this Glamour in action more than once, but still understands little. He's seen about three humans that seem to be doing Eric Northman's biddings, and they all fall easily under that form of hypnosis to which Nate is apparently immune. He has watched a waitress named Ginger bring him food and drink, and then turn around and seemingly forget that Nate's ever existed. He's watched the very same people, enthralled and enraptured by Eric, become instant preys. Not unwilling victims, just preys that are no more than cattle to these—

 _Vampires_ , Nate's mind helpfully tries to supply the word. Vampires. Vampires. Vampires. This repetition does not make the word seem any less insane, or in any way help him reconcile his existing worldviews with the seemingly evident fact that vampires pay bills.

"Oh, and Eric," Pam adds, just as she turns to leave, "the two humans have been disposed of."

Eric hums in approval. "Inform the Magister that all outstanding tasks have been completed."

"Done," she says crisply before she closes the door behind her.

For a long moment, there's nothing but the crackling noise of the paper shifting over the blanket. Nate watches the way Eric's long, bone-white fingers card through yet another stack of bills—and tries, somewhat successfully, to suppress the memory of those same cold hands on him.

Nate takes a breath and pulls himself up to sit on the bed.

"What happened to those men?" he asks. His voice is hoarse, and it takes more efforts than it should to form the words, but he takes some consolation in that at least his question has come out steady and even.

Eric pauses in the middle of leafing through the next stack of bills and considers Nate over the paper in his hand. "Why do you care? Even you, in your seemingly rather generous estimate of human nature, would have to judge that your world is now a better place without these lowlifes."

"Neither you nor I get to judge what a life is worth," Nate says—rather imprudently. Regardless of whether he has a choice in the matter, he isn't truly resigned to playacting Scheherazade just to delay a certain death, and it's becoming dangerously difficult to temper his words. "And they were not some accidental casualties in your selfless desire to make the world a better place."

"Oh, I agree," Eric says, with a wide grin that's more teeth than a smile. "No judgment is particularly required when you're swatting a fly."

In previous nights, a mere act of daring to talk back would've been enough to trigger a retaliatory response, but Eric is in an oddly jovial mood tonight, one that Nate cannot make heads or tails out of.

"Tell me, then," Eric demands, pushing away the papers from the bed. "You've killed before. Taken lives. Yes?"

"Yes," Nate answers, because it's the truth.

Lying propped on his elbow over his abandoned bills and watching Nate with a tilted head, Eric is the very picture of idle curiosity. "During your war."

It hasn't been Nate's war, but to argue that point would be playing with semantics just to be obstinate. "Yes."

"In my wars, we fought because we were told to fight. We killed, because we were told to kill. But mostly we killed because otherwise we'd end up dead. Do you consider your cause more nobler than mine had been?"

There are not enough words to describe Iraq. Nate could search forever just to find enough, _right_ , words to describe it, but noble is never going to be one of them. "At the end of the day, the justification attributed for starting a war, any war, is to protect lives. The same reason applies to the justification for ending it," Nate admits freely. "And this war was no different."

"And yet you participated in the same hypocrisy. Do you view those deaths as a necessity, then? The right of the might? Imposing order over chaos?" Eric asks conversationally, tone seemingly indolent but the word choices anything but. "Is it not what you humans do to each other, casting about judgment over who lives and dies?"

Nate isn't new to marshaling his words and strategizing them even while feeling nothing but exhaustion. He's learned enough of how to dance on the razor edge of the precarious and volatile moods of their COs in order to save his men from the consequences of their decisions. Even at his physical worst, he knows when to parry an attack and when to put words back into the scabbard.

He's not leaning on any of that experience when he says, "No. Not for long, anyway."

"Oh?" Eric raises one inhumanly elegant eyebrow. "Suddenly all your petty human squabbles will cease to exist?"

"Yes. Likely very shortly."

"This astonishing display of optimism seems rather unlike you, Nate."

"Such petty squabbles would have to be put aside in order to wage war against your kind when the world finds out that you exist."

In an instant, the amused glint in Eric's eyes vanishes.

It's been predictable enough. Nate is fully prepared to anger Eric thoroughly and die for it, just to put an end to this false equivalency of dismissing countless lives that people have sacrificed as nothing more than human futility—just for this small, admittedly minor, satisfaction of squashing an argument even more inadequately articulated than the ones he's encountered in some fifth grade anti-war debates.

What he hasn't expected is Eric's sudden laugh, abrupt and sharp.

It's a startling sound, made worse by the unexpectedness of it. It makes Eric seem almost incongruently human, not some old wives' tale monster he seems to be at the best of times.

When the laughter trails to a stop, Eric grins slowly, delightedly at him. "In the end, you're all just flies buzzing about. Why would we bother to deign a war against you when you all die to each other daily?"

Nate almost wants to rub a hand down his face, if he could. He's not sure how this situation can improve upon knowing that apparently vampires can misquote T.S. Eliot to suit their convenience. "It implies a metaphysical death, not a physical one."

"No? No matter." Eric's grin only grows. "I'm personally more partial to Byron myself. He threw excellent parties."

 _Byron_ , Nate thinks, trying not to mentally stumble over the idea and decidedly failing. It may have been his own arrogance, to think he would be able to even grasp at what's happening while the paradigm of life itself is shifting too fast. The idea of experiencing centuries of history, to have lived—in whatever definition of _living_ it would have been, for this Eric, goes against everything Nate has understood about the world, even the basic building blocks like the laws of nature.

What Eric sees on his face makes him arch his eyebrow again. "It surely can't be a surprise that Byron was a hedonist."

"No," Nate agrees, because that, at least, isn't. "The next thing you're going to say he was one of you."

"Alas, no. He was too volatile, even for us. But he did have an exceptional taste," Eric says, almost wistful. He stretches on the bed like a bored, languid cat, and then decides to turn his eyes on Nate again. "Well, speaking of hedonists."

In a blink, Eric's fingers, feather-light, are on Nate, tracing along his jawline. The way Eric turns Nate's head and holds his gaze is perilously mesmerizing, like a predator before it starts to bleed its prey.

Nate takes a sharp breath, abruptly awake from the insistent pull of mesmerism, and tries to wrench away from this insipid imitation of what must pass for intimacy for Eric's kind. It's a pointless resistance at best; Eric only digs in his fingers further, leaving bruises everywhere he touches.

"Why do you do this?" Nate asks, unthinking and senseless, trying to push down panic rising in his chest. He doesn't— _can't_ understand still. There seems to be countless ways Eric could get whomever and whatever he wants, whenever he wishes, but—

"I enjoy your taste as well as your company," Eric says, summarily dismissive, as if that should be a sufficiently good reason for anyone, least of all for Nate. "Everlasting life has its toll, and there are, regrettably, very few things I enjoy in this world."

Under the endless desert sun, there was one single instant, crouched next to Brad Colbert and encaged by sand dunes while another town was being blazed and civilians were burned to death, when Nate sincerely believed the true evil in the world must be selfishness, driven and hammered into everyone to the point where they felt nothing but indifference in the face of human lives and sufferings.

And here he is now, perhaps about to learn of a different type of evil, inscrutable and impossible to understand, except maybe as an epitome of a five-year-old boy who who'd tear apart the wings of a butterfly just because he feels like it.

"I don't want this. None of these people you compel would want it. But you rob people of their wills and judge their lives to be worthless except as cattle to be picked upon on your whims. And you want me to debate wartime moralities with you." Nate closes his eyes for a moment. "No, I won't."

"No?" Eric echoes, head tilted in a question.

"No," Nate repeats, maybe more to himself. "I won't."

"Trying to teach me a lesson, Nate?" Eric asks, punctuated by a mocking smile. "That I shouldn't always get what I want? Exactly how do you see that lesson unfolding?"

Unsuccessfully, Nate thinks. He's already had sufficient time to consider the current predicament. It hasn't been difficult to conclude that there isn't any scenario where it'd end well for him. And yet.

And yet, Nate finds himself smiling a little. "I suppose you may have been right about the human nature."

For a long moment, Eric watches him. His eyes are dark and impenetrable, any trace of human entirely absent.

Back at the street alley when Nate first saw this man, someone who wasn't even a _man_ but had Brad's face, he was regarding Nate with nothing but bored indifference, and Nate, for one thoughtless moment, wanted nothing more than to dislodge that expression from this familiar face.

Eric no longer regards Nate with indifference, but with something else Nate can't quite name, something that he has no wish to know.

"Well, then," Eric says, his smile once again cold and alien and unknowable, and reaches for him. "As long as we're clear."

Nate thinks, distantly, that it may have been wiser to wish for complete indifference.

* * *

The wood planks of Mike's porch creaked with his each step, and the cool breeze greeted Nate. He'd hoped the night air to calm him down, and it worked, if for a short while—at least better than the beer in his hand.

"Thinking of making a run for it, sir?"

Nate turned; Brad Colbert was leaning against the railing at the far corner of the otherwise empty porch, also nursing a bottle of beer in one hand.

Nate sometimes wondered, somewhat absurdly, whether Iceman could actually read everyone's mind, as Ray Person often propagated, or it was just Nate's. Neither was a comforting thought. "It's possible I'm contemplating my chances," Nate said, more honestly than he had ever thought feasible. Honesty hadn't been truly allowed before, not when Brad was Nate's subordinate, but now—

Now, he wasn't.

Brad nodded his head at the main gate across the yard. "You can probably make it to the front door before Mike catches you."

"With you running interference, I could conceivably improve my chances," Nate said. "Make it to the street even, before he notices."

"Given Gunny still has access to extensive firearms while you don't, what are the chances that I would be a willing accomplice in your jailbreak instead of the hunting party?"

"I could appeal to the goodness of your heart," Nate suggested, in a sad, last-ditch effort.

"You're shit outta luck, sir," Brad said, voice low and amused. "I misplaced that at the last AO."

Nate smiled, just a little, and Brad strolled over to his side. For a long, quiet moment, they drank their beer and watched the swings in the backyard swaying gently along the breeze.

"Leaving the Corps was the right decision," Brad said, once the silence settled. "You're a big time idealist. War doesn't suit you."

Stated matter-of-fact, it lacked a sharp barb of criticism, but it grazed just the same, even if Nate himself agreed with the assessment. Blind obedience that the Corps demanded was not something Nate was capable of, not in the long run, nor could he remain one step removed from reality in order to cope, in the way that Dave McGraw seemed to prefer. 

And between the two of them, Nate had always believed Brad was the real idealist. No matter what Brad himself seemed to think, it was Brad who had believed in the ideals, Brad whose belief that Nate had to partake in shattering altogether during the war. But Nate swallowed the words at the last minute and sipped the lukewarm beer so he didn't have to meet Brad's eyes.

"And," Brad continued, "you can't compromise. It's a shitty characteristic in a commander."

Nate almost wanted to ask where Brad had been for the last few months; their life in Iraq had been haphazardly strung together with compromises and disappointments that Nate had brought to his men. Instead, Nate just said, with another smile, "Well, don't hold back now, Brad. This may be your last chance."

There was a small smile tugging at Brad's lips, too. "But then again, you did save our ass more than once and brought us back in one piece. The rest of this country could do with some of that saving. You can do it out there, not with us. So there's that, sir."

Brad said all of it casually, as if his words weren't devastating enough. As if Nate could shoulder the expectations that he could change this—any of _this_ —and right the wrongs somehow, only given a chance to do so.

He didn't have words to meet any of that. "Nate," Nate offered instead, impulsively. Stupidly. "I'm not your CO anymore."

Brad moved, causing a ripple in the air, and offered his hand to Nate. "It's been an honor, Nate."

Nate took it, and felt the calluses on the hand as the faint, rough imprints on his palm. "Likewise, Brad."

For a still moment, Brad didn't let go of his hand. "I hope there comes a day," he said, "when all of us collectively stop failing to meet your expectations."

With Brad, Nate often struggled to find words, constantly feeling tested and found wanting, but this, but _this_ he could say with absolute certainty. "You've never failed me. Not once."

Brad abruptly let his hand go and turned away, swallowing a gulp of his beer. "Not even when I was singlehandedly trying to diffuse a bomb?"

Even then. Maybe even more so. He may have loved Brad all the more for that, for caring so much, despite the futility of the act itself. "Even for that spectacular and boneheaded demonstration of idiocy, yes," Nate said.

Brad let out a small chuckle, and Nate thought it was easier to share a laugh over it, now that they were sufficiently distant from that moment, even though the heart-palpitating memory of finding Brad standing on the scorched hole, with a bomb that could believably go off at any point, still refused to fade.

"Nate," Brad started, his eyes seemingly still on the swings, but he stopped when Mike and Stafford stepped out into the porch.

"I _told_ you he was hiding, Gunny," said Stafford, bouncing on his feet in glee. "LT, you've been ordered to finally cut the damned cake and make good on your promise of a speech."

"Must I?" Nate asked, somewhat more tragically than necessary.

"Yes, you must," Mike said firmly, in his tough, take-no-prisoner-tone that Nate was immensely familiar with, and put an arm around Nate's shoulders, effectively trapping him.

Brad, heartless, laughed at the look on Nate's face, and even harder that the betrayed look that Nate shot him after. Resigned to his fate, he let Mike usher them back inside, where rest of his men were celebrating Nate becoming a civilian once again.

In his memory, he'd been able to hold the same conversation from that night over and over, and made himself hold onto that hand just a little longer.

But even in his recollections, even in his dreams, he couldn't end the conversation with a different outcome.

* * *

* * *

**vi.**

It's yet another night when Eric finds himself once again forgoing other pleasures and ending up in this room that holds nothing of interest except for its occupant. Nate has fallen into an uneasy, difficult sleep, and he looks deceptively small, curled up and lit darkly in blue and white, looking fragile and pliable in all the ways that Eric knows he isn't.

Eric perches on one corner of the bed and examines a curious feeling that has settled in his chest.

"People are still looking for him," Pam has already warned him over their shared dinner together, one delicate finger rubbing away the blood streaked on her cheek. "You need to wrap that shit up. And soon."

As always, Pam is not wrong. Drawing attention to themselves this close to Coming Out, as Nan Flanagan has tactlessly put it, is, is unadvisable, and regardless of how little he thinks of her, he has no desire to jeopardize their kind's much discussed and decided strategic planning on some sudden caprice of his own. And yet, he feels no desire to curb this vice, as it is. Eric wants this curious feeling again, this calm that he can hardly get anywhere else.

Eric wants it, this calm in the tempest, not just sullied and tainted, but _had_.

So, it's all so easy to give into the temptation of coaxing Nate away from sleep that's taken him hostage. Human skin, Eric always finds, is almost unbearably warm to the touch. He rests his fingers on the nape of Nate's neck and lets its heat travel all the way to his own. The human skin flushes beautifully, even if the touch is unwanted. Especially because it's unwanted.

He can tell the instant Nate is awake, from the way his entire body completely stills while his heartbeats begin to stutter. Once his eyes land on Eric, his entire face immediately shutters down, any expression all but absent. But despite almost all contrary indications so far, Nate is apparently still only human with human limitations, because there is little strength left in his renewed struggles, and Eric pins him down easily.

Maybe far too easily.

Eric lifts Nate's arm, ignoring his sharp gasp of pain, and studies the violent scorings around the wrist and the mangled fingers, cracked and useless. The rest of his body, where Eric has already left many vivid marks, is bluish pale and bloodless.

The frailty of a human body has never troubled Eric before. It's not meant to be sturdy, and it's far too prettier broken. It's never meant to last. But now that it's evident how easily it is wrecked when you _do_ want it to last, Eric finds it rather—inconvenient.

Of course, this can be quickly rectified.

The idea, while sudden, is not an unattractive one, all considered.

Eric touches Nate's cheek marred by bruises, feeling inexplicably gentle. "I could make all of this go away."

At the moment that Eric's meaning registers, a look of startled alarm, one that Eric hasn't seen in these green eyes before, makes its way Nate's face, followed by tight anger, already well familiar to Eric.

"No," Nate says fiercely, the single word inexorable and final.

It's not a surprise, of course, that this particular human would refuse the privilege that all other humans who know of his kind's existence plead for every night. "So, you'd rather choose to wither and die."

"I don't want your everlasting life."

Eric feels a curving smile on his face. "Because I'm an abomination to your choirboy sensibilities?"

Nate takes a breath and steels himself. "You've made it clear what I want means absolutely nothing to you, but I won't trade my life for your immortality."

"Then you'll cling to your mortal life, despite how long—or short—it might last?" Eric trails his hand along the taut line of Nate's throat. An implicit, and explicit, threat. "You really believe you won't break. It's quite a hubris, Nathaniel, one that not even I would be capable of."

Nate doesn't offer his answer, once again submerged in that familiar, restrained silence.

 _Ah_ , thinks Eric. That's not it, either. He doesn't consider himself unfailing. Rather the opposite.

"If you try to kill yourself before I allow it," Eric says, pleasantly, "I will bring you back. Every time."

Nate's face turns paper-white, lips bloodless, but it's still determinedly calm. "If you turn me, the first thing I do will be killing you."

Of that, Eric has no doubt. "Oh, I'm certain you will _try_ ," says Eric, with a genuine mirth. "I'm rather looking forward to it."

Nate shuts his eyes, and there's battle-weary exhaustion seeping into his face that makes him look impossibly young. And eminently more breakable. "You've lived a long time. You've forgotten what it's to be kind. To have mercy. To care. You don't remember there's more to people than _this_ ," he tells Eric, his hand clenched and knotted in the sheets. "I can't—I won't be that."

Eric runs his fingers through Nate's hair, catching and twisting strands indulgently. "You would rather die than become me."

Eric wonders, almost idly, if the human would lie.

"Yes," says Nate, quiet and still.

He doesn't, of course. Honesty. Another novelty. And yet Eric finds no enjoyment in this particular novelty. "You should've lied, Nathaniel."

"I know." The voice should've been shaking, but it's not. Only quiet, and knowing.

Eric remembers once wanting to pry this human apart until that determined, resolute calm bleeds away from these eyes. But there's something else in them now, something like regret—not about angering Eric, never about that, because this human shows such a casual disregard for his own life, but something else.

Something that seems dangerously close to sympathy.

Anger has a shade of color. Even to those who only live in darkness, red, the shade of anger and blood, stands out among all palettes, stark and cruel and vicious.

Eric has no desire to grant the mercy of a quick death. And every desire to paint all red until the bed runs slick with blood.

Eric hauls Nate's hands over his head and clasps them tightly to the headboard until he hears the fragile human bones creak. Only then he grasps Nate's chin and tilts it until he can see those eyes again.

"We'll have it your way. I won't kill you or turn you, not tonight. But by the end of this, you'll wish I did."

* * *

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

* * *

**vii.**

Eric is in on a rampage, and Pam has a headache.

She leans against the doorframe and watches the unfolding display with an increasingly thinning smile. Eric is surrounded by his usual groupies and hangers-on, all collectively writhing and moaning at his feet. He goes through them all with bored indifference, draining them and discarding them one by one. When one of them makes a mistake of clinging to him, Eric nonchalantly breaks her arm. The girl is too stunned to scream, and Eric reaches for her neck, telegraphing every intention of snapping it in half.

It is, frankly, a display of irritation that even Pam considers excessive.

"Eric," Pam, still from the doorway, cautions sharply.

Eric's hand pauses ever so minutely. At this point, Pam gives it half a chance or less that Eric would even deign to reconsider his next move, given there isn't even anger in his eyes, only wholly and comprehensive disinterest. But after a stilted moment, he flicks the limp girl away from him in the same motion as brushing lint away from his pants and proceeds to sweep out of the room, dropping blood and bodies in his wake.

Meaning, the mess here is hers to clean up. Well, if you can't delegate, there's no point in living. She calls up Chow, and spends her time leisurely retouching her fingernails while Chow Glamours the humans and gets them to drink V when Glamour isn't enough to undo the damages on them. Feeding humans their blood can cure them of outward injuries, but it's not something that they like to use and abuse for no particular reason.

"What brought this on, anyhow?" she asks mostly to herself, double checking to make sure the basement is clean from the aftermath.

Chow, discreet and loyal and would never dare to go against Eric, hesitates. "Pam, if I may—"

Her eyes seemingly of their own volition roll heavenward. "Just tell me."

"It's that human. Eric hasn't been to him almost two days, so I thought he's lost interest, but he nearly bit my head off when I asked if we need to, you know, _dispose_ of him."

 _Ah_ , she thinks, once again considering the problem of the Good Samaritan who's been unfortunate enough to become the object of Eric's preoccupation. Eric enjoying himself with something new hasn't exactly been a surprise, given his extensive boredom in the last two decades, but the length and the intensity of it has been unusual, as has been his insistence to keep the human alive and _around,_ for some reason that Eric isn't at all interested in sharing with them.

"Should we intervene?" Chow asks, tentative.

Normally, she wouldn't begin to entertain the idea of interfering with Eric's pastime. But this clearly goes well beyond occasional temper tantrums that her Maker is well known for.

And deal with Eric and his messes, she must, since she has a club to run and a Sector to manage.

The bedroom that she usually steers clear away from has been kept dark and cold, and feels barely more pleasant than a walk-in fridge. And the human—well, even she has to admit that the human looks considerably deader than before. One might've assumed he was, except for the slow and irregular heartbeats she could still hear underneath the cool skin. He doesn't stir nor show any sign of waking up, even when she prods him particularly hard. He's been bled thoroughly and just enough, in order for him to remain human and alive instead of a vampire and dead—in a move so exacting that it would've had to have been on purpose.

All of this makes little sense. If Eric really wants to keep the boy around this much, turning him would've been a neat solution to all problems. The human, while pretty enough, isn't even the type that would usually draw Eric's attention. Eric always likes vibrant and willing pliable playthings that are eye-catching and entertaining. Solemn and quiet and determined is exactly the opposite of the types that Eric is known to enjoy.

Well, maybe except—

Except Godric.

_Of course._

"Fuck me," Pam murmurs, feeling a fresh set of headaches tearing loose in her head, as she recalls the image of Erick's Maker, Godric—who was quiet and solemn and always so fucking determined, even as he killed himself in front of Eric—because now, this _really_ needs to be dealt with.

"Uh, Pam?" says Ginger, who clearly has the best timing, as she pokes her head in and blinks in the darkness. Her eyes glaze over the human behind Pam, as she's been Glamoured to do, and lands on her. "There are some cops here to see you."

Pam is briefly tempted to murder just about everyone on sight and leave the state for about a century. Sadly, the temptation does not last long enough. The fact that she's worked hard for decades to get this place sorted out to be the way she exactly likes kicks in as a reminder just in time and restrains her from taking any drastic action, as merited and enticing as a drastic action may be at this point.

Ginger looks skittish and unnerved all the while leading Pam out to the front, but this isn't an unusual state for the waitress, and occasional visits from the cops are common enough that Pam heeds little mind to that little detail until she follows her out and catches the sight of the two cops waiting for her. One is a local police who's been around before, and he isn't in any way a surprise.

The surprise is the tall, Nordic man hanging in the back that Ginger is openly staring at—one that literally stops Pam in her tracks. The man is an almost exact facsimile of Eric, right down to the cool, assessing gaze that settles on Pam without a flicker of recognition. In a passing glance, he could be easily mistaken as Eric, except for the little difference: this one is decidedly human.

 _Fuck me,_ she murmurs under her breath again, and plasters on a courtesy smile. "Well, hi there," she starts, taking her spot behind the bar, "what brings you to our little corner of the city?"

The cop—Sergeant Glen Hogan, she recalls the name a second later—puts on a genial smile that's almost as expertly plastered as hers. "Hey, Pam. Sorry to bother you, but we've got this missing persons case, and here I was hopin' you could maybe give us a hand?"

"Why, certainly," Pam offers, tilting slightly toward the second man. "Now, who's this friend of yours, Officer?"

On a closer look, the man's admittedly striking similarities end on overall features. His tanned face and short blond hair notably contrast against Eric's, and the man's bearings and the way he holds himself are so crisply military that he may as well be wearing a uniform.

"He's a family friend of the missing person," Hogan supplies smoothly, "here to land a hand."

"ID please?" Pam requests to Eric's human carbon copy, who narrows his eyes at her almost imperceptibly. She gives him a wide open smile in response. "We try to maintain the best relation possible with the local enforcement, of course, but we also need to make sure who we are dealing with."

He shows her his ID, and she smiles up at one Brad Colbert, from California and not a cop, who still does not smile back. "Now that the niceties are over," says Colbert, cool and collected, "perhaps you would be willing to entertain a few questions."

"Such as?"

"Have you seen this man?" Hogan asks, quickly brandishing a photo in her face. "Would've been around a week ago or so."

And because it's her lucky night, Pam is staring at the solemn face of Eric's alarmingly long lasting preoccupation.

Next to Pam, Ginger twitches. Visibly. It's possible that Ginger has been Glamoured one too many times that her brain is beginning to turn into mush, and given Pam's luck so far tonight Ginger may choose this particularly opportune moment for a meltdown. Pam thrusts a couple of beer bottles into Ginger's hands and waves her away. "Ginger, honey, get these to Jeff in the back, would you?"

Ginger backpedals and scrambles off, her eyes still on Colbert, and Pam snatches the picture in Hogan's hand and makes a show of studying it. "Cute face, but can't say I've seen him around."

"You sure?" Hogan asks. "You probably see a lot of faces in the club."

"Oh, but a sweet face like this? I would surely remember."

Hogan is professionally congenial. "Any chance you can rummage around to find CCTV recordings from a week ago?"

"Sugar, I do not _rummage._ And _not_ in this outfit."

"What would it take for you to decide to help?" Colbert, who's been keeping mostly quiet, asks. Impatient, but hiding it rather well behind that impassive face.

"A warrant," Pam replies, saccharine sweet. "We're running a business, after all. We take our privacy very seriously around here. Can't just share private information willy-nilly without a due cause, now, could we? That would be plain irresponsible."

The look on Colbert's face is just on the warmer side of arctic chill. It is of her strongest opinion that the world does not need another Eric Northman, but this Colbert does have a certain appeal, and there could definitely be some possibilities to explore here.

Her thought derails when another club regular passes by with a visible double take at Colbert, which prompts him to ask her drily, "Is there something on my face?"

There's no point in lying, she decides, when their regulars have been throwing him side-glances pretty much for the entire duration of their meeting. "Well, now that I think of it, you do bear some passing resemblance with one of the staff here," Pam answers, offhanded and dismissive.

Colbert hardly reacts to that news, as if it doesn't matter a wit to him. Which means the human doesn't know, or doesn't care. Hogan puts a hand on Colbert's arm and nods towards the door.

"Guess we'll just have to work on that warrant, then," says Hogan. "Will be back, Pam."

"Hurry back, Officer," Pam tells him with a cheery smile.

She retracts the smile the very moment they leave the club. She reaches for the phone and makes a call. And then makes several others, until she has sufficient information she needs. None of it is exactly good news.

Back in his office, Eric is brooding in complete darkness.

By himself.

It's undoubtedly a catastrophe in the making, but he tilts his head slowly at the look on her face, curiosity apparently winning over even the most calamitous mood he's been in for decades. Normally, she finds any sign that that Eric relies on her judgment rather gratifying. Tonight, however, that isn't enough to mollify her mood even for a second.

"Eric, do you happen to recall how I advised you, repeatedly, to get rid of that human earlier?" she asks, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We're about to have another reminder why I am _never wrong_."

* * *

* * *

**viii.**

"She was lying through her teeth," Brad decides, as soon as they clear out of the club.

"Yup," agrees Glen.

"She and that waitress—they both recognized him from the photo."

"Oh, they did at that, all right, and didn't care that we picked up on that, either," says Glen, as they make their way to his fleet vehicle. "Another thing—this is where I've seen you before." At Brad's look, Glen adds, "The owner of the club. I saw him around before, and lemme tell you, now that I think of it, the man does look _a lot_ like you. Any chance he could be some far-away relative of yours?"

In any other time, this may have piqued some interest in Brad, even somewhat distantly. Right now, however, his primary interest is nowhere near whether he could be related to someone who owns a club named _Fangtasia_ , of all things.

The expression on Brad's face must have made his thought transparent. "And if he is," Glen says, "it could be a way in. It's not like I could just request a warrant on mere suspicions, and that man's supposed to be a bit of a recluse. We rarely ever see him outside that club."

"There's no real way to know, either way," says Brad, after a moment of consideration. It's not a secret he zealously guards, so he clarified that with, "I was adopted."

"Oh." There's a look of surprise as Glen thinks it through, and then he shrugs. "Well, that's the end of that, then. Let's see if I can work on some other angle."

Glen fishes out the keys from his pocket. Brad, reaching for the car door, pauses, taken in by a clear and obvious question:

Is it too much of a coincidence?

What would you do, Brad asks himself, if you tripped over someone that looked a lot like Nate in some random place where you least expected it? Would you, at least, try to strike a friendly conversation?

Brad would, most likely. And Nate, even just as Brad's former CO, certainly might have, just to satisfy his curiosity. And then—then what? Nate may not be infallible, but it's still unlikely that he would've been taken in by any measure of smaller troubles.

Except, there has been a stench of something else, this otherness, seemingly creeping under the current of the atmosphere in that disquieting club, something that sharpened at the edge of his awareness. It already feels well past the time when he would start loading his M-4 and checking for extra ammo. This is when he gets ready to aim.

 _Fucking pitiful_ , Brad deems himself, savagely. _You're a fucking Recon Marine. Fucking act like it._

"Tell me." Brad consciously unfurls his fist and drops it on the hood of the car. "What's really in there?"

Glen, a seasoned detective who's been around the block and seen more things than most people, hesitates to form his answers.

"Let's just say you'd better hope your CO didn't get mixed up in this," he says, once they're in the car and ready to drive away. Brad doesn't miss the way Glen's hand tightens around wheel. "Because, that back there? That was just plain bad news."

* * *

They were halfway dug in for the night, in what could've been a parking lot for a cigarette factory a week ago but now just one of many decrepit and empty husks of Baghdad still left standing. They were on 25% watch, but most of them were up and about their graves, too buzzed to be resting and too buzzed to be awake. The radio fizzled with statics and songs that they could barely make out, but that didn't stop Ray from following along loudly. Not that anything ever stopped him.

" _Fly me to the moon_ , _let me play among the stars_ ," Ray sang, in seemingly drunken buoyancy that he rarely lacked, sober or high or otherwise. " _In another word, hold my hand—"_

Most of them watched, cracking up occasionally and throwing remnants of MREs at Ray. Ray twirled around Poke, who flat out refused to join in, and sashayed around Walt, who was busy doubling up in laughter. " _In another word, darlin', kiss me—_ "

Brad was halfway inside his Victor and leaning against his seat, his flak vest loose and flapping. He breathed in the chill in the air and shut his eyes briefly. In that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, he heard the LT's voice.

"Not joining in?" Nate was asking him, just at the foot of his Victor. His eyes were briefly on Ray before they returned to Brad. "Thought it was your dream."

Brad blinked and wondered when he'd started lucid dreaming and what kind of bullshit Ray was sprouting all over the place now. "Sir?"

"Saw you spread your wings earlier," Nate said, by way of explanation. "Ballerina, Brad?" He sounded deadly serious, and would've looked it, too, if not for the small amused glint in his eyes that Brad could recognize almost as well as his own.

"Ballroom dancer," said Brad, straight-faced.

"Oh? Why did you give up your dream?"

"Couldn’t quite meet the height requirement, sir. Not tall enough."

That got him a hint of a smile, just shy of a full one. It remained a point of professional pride for Brad that he could still coax a grin out of the LT, from time to time.

That glimpse of a smile didn't last long. Not that Brad had expected it to. "How's he?" Nate asked, lowering his voice and nodding at Walt. Walt hadn't been the same since he'd shot a civilian during an engagement, and Nate, being just about the only decent CO they'd got around, noticed.

"Better," Brad said. It wasn't a lie, not quite, but as always the full truth, more often than not, would've added more weight on his shoulders.

If Nate had noticed Brad's dodge, he had the grace not to let it show. Instead, he said, "I've alerted the Ops regarding the bomb."

"Any chance of it getting dismantled before we pull out?"

Nate shot him a short and eloquent look of restrained misery. "More than likely, they'd deem it a lost cause and move on."

Brad nodded, accepting and refusing it at the same time. "Ever wonder what isn't a lost cause here, sir?"

"We can't right every wrong," Nate said, in an even, exacting tone that helped Brad guess how many times Nate had told the same thing to himself.

Brad was fully aware that he had, at some point, inadvertently imprinted on Nate Fick as his personal savior, even against the clear and mighty logic of the cardinal, unchanging rule: at the end of the day, most COs were nothing but colossal failures of leadership. But Nate wasn't infallible, either. Far from it, in fact.

Whatever Nate saw in his face made him take a breath and meet his gaze directly. "We're—too close, Brad."

 _Fuck_. Brad almost goddamned flinched and leaned back. He had to consciously dig in and harden himself to hold still and not to react.

Nate worried his bottom lip, a habit that Brad thought he'd lost since Pendleton. "We're almost there. All this stupidity, all of these lost causes—they're almost over, and I won't lose any man. Not you, not anyone, not when we're so close to the end."

It wasn't quite pleading, but it was close, for their LT. His words were short and rough, his usually precise and fluent diction seemingly at a breaking point.

It was difficult not to wonder just then exactly how much longer he could stand to watch a well-meaning man lose himself, dent by dent, scrap by scrap. Nate Fick wanted to be a good man, wanted to leave the world a better place than he's found it. Pretty mundane, even pedestrian of a goal, but in another sense staggeringly ambitious—a breathtaking tragedy unfolding right in front of Brad's eyes. Because the world was eminently fallible, and Nate along with it.

But Nate had never hidden that from them, least of all Brad.

"Understood, sir," Brad said, as clearly and certainly he could manage.

Nate relaxed, as if there was a little more breathing room earned by hearing those mere two words. When he put his hand on Brad's arm, it was with the same usual quietness, still solid and reassuring, even when everything was visibly unraveling around them.

And weeks spent traveling under the burning sun trapped in a tin can with one Ray Person was finally triggering a delayed heatstroke, because, for one senseless moment, Brad wanted nothing more than to give into the momentary insanity to knock this hand away, grab Nate by the arms and kiss him. Not that this particular brand of insanity was anything new. For the most part, Brad had been able to control that instinct, as easily as regulating breathing under duress. But for now, Brad wanted nothing more than to press in and kiss him until that look on his face was wiped away because didn't want to have to watch. Watch and experience this continued loss.

Somewhere close and also far away, Ray cackled loudly, and Brad, as always, came tumbling down to earth. Where Nate was watching him carefully, still intact. Still in one piece. And Brad was going to have to make damned sure it stayed that way, while it was still at all up to him.

"Should we rein this in?" Brad asked in lieu of many other things he would've said and done, because, at least this, he could still do.

Nate glanced back at the platoon. "We can afford it for a little bit longer. Half an hour, and then call it," Nate said, allowing them more time for general tomfoolery and wayward laughs.

"Go on, sir," said Brad. "I'm on it."

Nate's nod before he moved to turn away was quick and appreciative. "And Brad, make sure to get some shuteye."

"Pot and kettle, sir."

That got Brad another smile that was halfway there, and earning it and getting to see it—that was enough. It had to be. Because at least this, he was allowed.

Even if it meant that he wouldn't have this—whatever _this_ was—with Nate.

And he still believed it when the scuttlebutt circulated that their LT, now Captain Fick, planned to resign his commission once they were stateside—and believed it even after Nate did leave, because while Brad could give two shits about the world and the country, he knew they could all use a smart man with a good heart out there.

This was enough.

Because this, he could still do.

* * *

"I'm blocked," says Glen, hanging up the phone and swiveling his chair around.

Brad leans against Glen's desk and glances at Glen's fellow cops milling about at the station. "Define blocked."

The look on Glen's face is an answer enough. "I've been officially advised not to pursue this anymore. Unofficially, I just got told off and was strongly persuaded not to go within a mile of that club for the next while if I have any design on retiring on schedule."

Brad barely restrains himself from running a hand down his face. "So, whoever owns this club—they've got reaches. Somewhere high up."

"Yup."

"And more than likely they're behind this."

Glen nods, quick and affirmative. "No reason for this sort of heat to land on me this quickly unless they're involved in this one way or another. Either they know something—"

"Or they did this."

"Yup."

This is all Brad needs. He pushes off the desk and thanks Glen for his invaluable help.

"Wait, hold a sec there now." Glen gets up and follows in a hurry before Brad can make his exit. "You got any sort of plan in mind, or you just planning to go barrelling in again? Look," Glen says, and leaves an obvious pause marked by hesitation. "You understand. It's been over a week."

Brad understands perfectly. It's been a week. Statistics dictate that Nate is more likely to turn up a dead body in a ditch blocks away from the club. If he turns up at all. And if the club's really behind Nate's disappearance, they've now been officially alerted that the cops are onto them. Which would likely prompt them into taking any number of actions, none of which would be good news for Nate, even if he were still—

Brad firmly shuts down that line of thoughts, because there's no fucking time. "I'll make do."

It doesn't take a second for Glen to realize he isn't going to convince Brad otherwise. "All right, just, let me tell you this one thing before you go." He pulls Brad to one corner of their office where they wouldn't likely be overheard. "If you ever come into trouble with them that might involve shooting, you should consider asking questions _later_ , not first."

It takes a second for Brad to parse that. "You want me to engage in full. Against civilians. On US soil."

Brad sounds skeptical even to his own ears, and Glen grimaces a little. "Not an advice I'd ever give out lightly or to anyone. It's just that, things that happen there with those people—a gun might not work on them. Might stop them, though. For a little while, anyway."

"You're telling me that gunshots won't take them down?"

"Not all the time," Glen says seriously, as if that makes any fucking sense.

"I think," Brad tells him, "it's about time for you to tell me everything you know about this place."

* * *

Captain Brent Morel's funeral was a quiet, somber affair.

Most of the former Bravo Company still in the stateside attended, even those who had never served with him before, which included Brad. This wasn't the first time they had lost one of theirs, but a sobering, shattering thought seized to him while the honor guards fired their last shots.

It could have been Nate in that coffin. It could've been anyone, anyone at all in that coffin. If Brad hadn't taken up with the Royal Marines for a year, it could have been him in that wooden box instead, or no one at all. It still didn't change the fact that Morel had taken Nate's place in the Bravo Company.

Nate, already harboring a sizeable guilt for leaving them to make a difference elsewhere, wouldn't have let this go unattended. In fact, Brad had fully expected to see him here and hardened himself for seeing him again. He didn't. The why of it was answered when Mike Wynn saw Brad and waved him over.

"He'd planned on coming," Mike began, no preambles, as soon as Brad appeared at his side. There wasn't a smudge of doubt as to whom Mike was referring. "Told me so as much."

Mike's expression said something else entirely. Brad felt a sudden coldness settle in his core. "But?"

"I just talked to his sister. He's missing."

 _Missing,_ Brad thought. Missing. MIA. An alien, cold word could mean a dozen different things. "What the fuck does that mean at home?"

"He was on some conference, presenting a paper or some shit, and in the middle of it, he's just fucking vanished."

Brad's hands clenched into fists. "Give me the details."

Brad skipped the wake; an hour later, he was on the first available flight to Louisiana.

Because at least this, he could do.

* * *

_"That's fuckin' South for you, homes. Did or did I not warn you of all kinds of hinky shit happening down there?"_

The familiar drawl lulls Brad into an odd sense of ease, not that he'd ever admit that to anyone, including the owner of said drawl. "A 'hinky shit' could conceivably explain how your whiskey tango degenerate ass came to take up space in this world," Brad answers into the phone, while his eyes are still on the bright streets blooming with night crowds. "It does not, however, in any way even begin to explain whatever the fuck this is."

_"You got any local support?"_

"On my own in this. Sergeant Hogan—Trombley's uncle—was immediately and officially advised to stay the fuck away."

 _"Fucking Trombley,"_ Ray says automatically, seeming just on general principle, because there's no heat behind the voice that the usual mantra would regularly accompany. _"So, here is the thing. I did hear some hinky shit."_

Brad snorts. "You don't say."

 _"Fuck you very much,"_ Ray retorts. _"I'm known to hear some legit shit. And know shit. And hear shit I know so much about. My shit hearing's 20/20, as a matter of fact."_

It's a poor attempt to conjure up a decent banter. While they've worked with less and worse, their hearts are not exactly in it. "Like what?"

 _"Like things that go bump in the night might just be real. If LT's up to his neck in it somehow—"_ Ray trails off, and the lack of profanity is almost as disturbing as its implications. _"Look, man, I can be there in a day. There are maybe two, three others still here right now. A few more, if you think it could wait another day."_

A few members of Bravo Two are still stateside after Captain Morel's funeral, which means Ray could show up here with them in a day. Having his people here and backing him up would go miles to allay some of the expected obstacles, but—

This can't wait.

Fuck it. Marines fucking make do. "No, but if you don't hear from me in half a day, then call it."

 _"Solid copy,"_ says Ray, and then immediately adds, _"But only if you say: Ray, I'd like my best pal Ray-Ray to watch my shapely ass while I go rescue our waylaid CO, also known as the love of my_ —"

Leave it to Ray to turn the dramatic fuckedup-ness of the situation into some booty call. Brad runs a hand down his face. "Shut the fuck up, Ray."

 _"Love you, too, Bradley,"_ says Ray, still giddy. _"Oh, and watch yourself. Otherwise, LT would have_ my _shapely hide."_

Brad hangs up the phone and keeps his eyes on the back entrance of _Fangolia_. The front of the club is busy with heavy foot traffic. He remains in the shadow cast by the streetlights across the street, where he can observe people in relative safety.

The waitress emerges from the door just after midnight, far sooner than he's expected. He approaches slowly, not wanting to spook her but very much aware that a man emerging suddenly from the shadows most definitely would. At least the streets are filled the Mardi Gras crowds, letting him blend in and appear less threatening.

Somehow, he doesn't seem to startle her. She catches him and frowns in complete bafflement. "Eric? Weren't you with—oh no, wait, you're that other guy from earlier." She blinks up at him owlishly, as if she can't quite compute what she's seeing. "It's just— _wow_. It's still seriously weird. You look so much like Eric, but you're totally not him? It's wigging me out."

 _Eric_ , thinks Brad, turning the name carefully in his mind. "I was actually hoping to ask if you've seen a friend of mine."

She immediately hunches her shoulders. "I really don't know anything."

"You recognized him in the picture."

"I never saw him," she recites each word carefully, and there's an odd, lilting quality to her voice, one that hasn't been there a moment earlier. "I never see— _saw_ him. Because I don't remember that face. I can't."

Between glazed eyes and twitchy hands, it's easy enough to tell something is very wrong with her. "Look. _Look_ ," Brad says sharply, and her eyes lose some of the bleary look. "What do you mean you can't?"

She focuses on his face again, and her teeth sink on her bottom lip. "It's just that, the picture, the guy looks familiar? Not like you. Not at all like that, no, I don't think so, but he still looks like someone I saw, maybe, before," she says all in a rush, like the words are being dragged out of her. "But except I can't. I can't know him. 'Cause I'm not supposed to."

"That's enough, Ginger," says a bulky man from behind Brad. Either Brad's situational awareness has dropped to shit, or that man has just emerged out of thin air. The man's eyes on the waitress are hard and piercing. "Go home."

"Yes, Chow," she says, the anxiety that has been holding her captive evaporating just as immediately as turning compliant. She gets into her car and leaves without a single backward glance. Which leaves Brad with this Chow.

 _Well, then_ , thinks Brad.

They're in the open. And there are people, with enough witnesses for this Chow—or for Brad, whichever direction this may land. Either way, it's on.

The man shows no sign of registering Brad as a threat, but he's still on edge, seemingly unnerved, when he tries to meet Brad's eyes. As if he's seeing something—or _someone_ —else in Brad.

Eric, his apparent twin, evidently inspires a healthy dose of fear, even by proxy. Which may work in Brad's favour. At this point he'd have to take all the advantages he could find.

"Your friend isn't here," says Chow, mostly in a growl.

Brad relaxes his shoulders and nods at the backdoor. "You won't mind if I take a look around inside, then."

"Oh, I do mind. We're closing early tonight."

"That's quite convenient," says Brad, with half a shrug. "Then you really wouldn't need to mind if I check around here and bust down a few doors."

Chow's scowl turns slowly into something that you could describe as a smile, if you're feeling exceptionally charitable and possibly legally blind. And even though Brad has been somewhat warned and therefore amply bracing himself for it, when the man displays his too-sharp teeth along with his smile, he almost doesn't manage to clamp down his knee-jerk reaction at reality suddenly turning into an improbable fiction.

"Chow, now, now, that's no way to treat our esteemed guest."

The woman from earlier—Pam—is standing at the back entrance to the club, one hand against the frame. "Hello again, Mr. Colbert," she says to Brad, with a jaunty wave.

Chow stands down right away at her command and takes a step back from Brad, making it clear who the bigger threat here really is. "Ma'am," Brad says with a nod.

She radiates a proper warm southern approval at him. "Well, aren't you a polite dear. Chow, you really need to mind your manners. Eric wants us to invite him in, not scare him out of his wit's end."

"Nah, he's been a teddy bear," Brad says, only sparing a glance at Chow's deepening scowl. He arches an eyebrow at her, at the idea that they're expecting him to walk right inside with them into a clear and unknown danger.

"Why, isn't this _just_ what you've been asking for?" asks Pam, as if reading his mind. She gives him a cheerfully serpentine smile. "Now, you wouldn't be thinking of turning down Eric's invitation, would you? Especially when he wants to discuss this missing friend of yours?"

Nate.

Oh, wouldn't he love it, Brad thinks, almost amused by the notion of Nate finding out being dangled like a bait in a transparent attempt of a trap that they all know it is. Nate would be even more furious, then, to find out that Brad buys it, hook, line and sinker. Because—

_You've never failed me. Not once._

And Brad isn't about to start now. "Well, then," he tells her, giving her a smile just as sharp and wide. "Lead on."

* * *

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Eric.

* * *

* * *

**ix.**

Nate surfaces, still bitterly unsuited for the struggle against the quicksand of moments that bleed into one another, where Eric's smile ripples and sways in scarlet and russet red. There is no consolation in breaking free from the nightmares, no relief in the pain loosening enough of its tight grips and letting him breathe again. In his waking moments, he only returns to another variant of the same purgatory.

Its host, fittingly framed by the dim light of the room, remains a dark and stark outline at Nate's side.

 _Why_ , Nate almost wants to ask, weary and hurt, despite the utter futility of the question. There's been only the ever-mercurial and icy fury when Nate last glimpsed Eric's face, enough to convince him it would be for the last time, that there could be no possibility of survival after such refusal. But now, in Eric's gaze that Nate can almost feel on his skin, there's a slow, lingering wonderment that still prickles with intents.

Why? How has his _entertainment_ _value_ yet to lessen for Eric in all of this?

How much more, then. How much longer.

"I can keep you," Eric says, as if he could pluck an errand strand of Nate's thoughts from the air that already feels thin, "until the end of time."

The bed dips with shifting weights, and Eric's voice is at his ear. "I can keep you, I can seep into every crevice of your heart, until there's nothing left of the morality that you wear around you like a meager protection. Until this pedantic idea of humanity that you cling to wears off, little by little, until all that remains is only dust." Eric's hand idly cards through Nate's hair, and Nate suppresses the shiver that each touch—and each word—leaves behind. "I wonder. What would you do when all of your choices have been taken away—when there are only messy truths left?"

Any remnant of SERE training has left Nate long before this night, feeble and inadequate in the face of the newfound Lovecraftian horror. He can't begin to comprehend, or even fear, what's unfathomable, but he's viscerally aware that Eric would be capable of all he speaks of, and more. And that with these words, Eric expects what he always does: a reaction of fear, a show of despair, a rejoinder in rage.

The idea of denying Eric even that small satisfaction is nearly alluring. Except it would be hardly any different from playing dead.

"The moment you succeed, what you'd have in your hands would be someone else, something else." Saying a few words takes almost everything out of Nate; he already feels tattered, ground down and whittled into a handful of dust. But he isn't one to play dead. Even now. Especially now. _Hubris_ , Eric has called it, but here it is, still. "And soon enough you'll just be needing another source of amusement."

After Nate, there would soon be another. Just as many as there would've been before, just as many after. He's just another distraction, another hapless victim to be netted and played with and then discarded, all for a momentary placation of Eric's tedium. Impermanent, and meaningless.

"At the end of it, you still won't find what you want," Nate tells Eric—forestalling with all the finality he can imbue with only words. And he waits, almost patiently, for Eric's anger to reemerge, now predictable and familiar.

But Eric only looks at Nate with chiding admonishment, akin to fondness of a teacher over a bright child making a willful mistake. "Always so certain of your actions and choices, Nathaniel." Eric's hand, still playing with Nate's hair, is as languid and unhurried as his words. "Always so sure your convictions are in the right."

Nate might've smiled just then, humourless and despite himself. In life so full of imperatives—of must, will, and should, of duties and beliefs and ideals—he has never been without doubt, never been assured of his choices, of their outcomes. He only did what he could, while knowing he would at times only fail.

But that, Nate thinks distantly, might be once again too mortal, too _futile_ , for Eric to grasp.

"Ah, so you disagree." Eric's voice is inordinately pleased. "Shall we then devise a test for your convictions? Would you give your life to—how did you put it, _in the selfless desire to make the world a better place_? What will you give to spare the life of my next source of amusement?"

This time Nate does feel a ghost of a smile on his face, there and then gone. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Eric echoes with a look of feigned disappointment. "Chivalry is indeed dead, is it?"

"The premise—that you'd spare a life in exchange—only works with an absurd supposition." Nate meets Eric's eyes and finds himself steady and unafraid. "That your word could ever be trusted."

The suggestion that Eric might spare any life he wants for his own gratification as some sort of fair trade for Nate's—the very idea that any of Eric's words are to be _believed at any given moment_ —it's only farcical. No such trade could ever exist.

Nate waits for Eric's hand to turn violent, for that familiar feel of a freezing hand closing around his throat once again. Instead, he only finds a small, amused lift to Eric's mouth, subtly hinting at the danger it accompanies, but otherwise unreadable.

Until Eric asks, "Who is Brad Colbert?"

Shock overrides pain and exhaustion in an instant. Nate's head is ringing with—

_Sir, your leadership is the only thing I have absolute confide—_

_No_ , Nate thinks. _No_.

He collects himself a moment too late, and even a sudden, preposterous hope—that the way he must have frozen at Brad's name might've been too brief, too short, for Eric's notice—vanishes at the sight of Eric's grin, caught in a downturn.

"I have been informed," Eric continues, slow and indulgent, "that in a rather startling instance of an oversight, you have failed to mention there's my likeness running loose in the world. Tell me." He pulls on a lock of Nate's hair, curling it around his finger. There's curiosity there, still, in that leisurely, unconcerned gesture. "Who is he?"

Thoughts, however few remaining, begin to splinter, and fear struggles to expand in Nate's chest and take hold. How much does Eric know? _How_ does he know?

His silence only serves to widen Eric's grin. "Or, I might feel compelled to find out directly from this human myself. Shall I?"

There's no way to render the veiled threat impotent, no way for him to respond except to concede something, _anything_. Nate feels wholly helpless for the first time since he's discovered that Eric Northman and his likes truly exist in this world. "He was one of my Marines in Iraq."

There's no surprise on Eric's face—this is not news to him. "And this Marine of yours wears my face."

"No," says Nate, and this, at least, he can say with no small amount of conviction, "you two are nothing alike."

"True enough," Eric readily agrees. Too readily. "I am cruel and unkind, and I do not share." _Not his own face, and certainly not Nate_ , seems to go without saying. There's no question that Eric will ensure things stay that way.

"Gunnery Sergeant Brad Colbert is surrounded by platoons of the most highly trained Marines imaginable and backed up by the best artillery support that any military can offer. He's not a prey—yours or anyone else's. You can't touch him," says Nate, desperately willing it to be true.

"Rather unfortunate, then, this particularly unconvincing assertion of yours can't truly be tested."

Nate can't completely pull himself back from staring up at Eric in incomprehension.

"Gunnery Sergeant Brad Colbert is currently right here, in my city, in an apparent and fraught attempt to find you." There's a delicate, vicious curl to Eric's smile. "Merely a stone's throw away, rather than this decent challenge your assertion promises."

Brad is— _here, in this city, to find—_

Each word lands like a blow, making Nate lose what little breath he's left.

He wants to close his eyes, unwilling to let them betray more than they already have. But he isn't given a chance to attempt even such a trifling defense. The hand in his hair tightens, abrupt and savage, until he has to strain and look up.

Eric's eyes are already taking in what must be evident on Nate's face. "The next source of amusement, Nate. Kill him, or turn him?"

"Don't," Nate answers, instinctive and thoughtless and terrified.

"Why?" Eric asks blithely, like it's an idle, frivolous question of no import. "Because you matter to him? Or he matters to you? The truth, this time."

That, at last, rouses up a small measure of anger, helpless as it is against the all-encompassing fear. "I've given you nothing but the truth."

"Of course you have. Only ever the truth." Eric's eyes seem almost inexplicably fond. "Tell me the truth that matters, and I might just reconsider."

Hasn't he just thought Eric's words are never to be trusted? That no possible trade can exist? But now, now there are no—

_What would you do when all your choices have been taken away?_

—choices left.

Only the messy truths.

Of all the people Nate knows, Brad belongs in the sunlight. In the ocean. In the desert. In lazy mornings and afternoons that Nate's never allowed himself even to fully dream of, Brad has always been under the sun. Even beyond the threat of death, Nate cannot imagine a worse fate to be wrought, any worse wrongness, than taking the sunlight away from him. What he would be without it.

His wrecked fingers start to tremble, so Nate holds them tightly against his palm, ignoring the flare of agony even the smallest move causes. "He's made me want to be a better person."

The truth that matters, and one that he's never been able to put to words. Because words have never felt right, nor adequate. Even now.

_I hope there comes a day, when all of us collectively stop failing to meet your expectations._

And this—this can't be where Nate fails him.

"Well, then, one should hope this Brad has a similarly transformative effect on others," says Eric, after an odd, stilted pause. His smile has grown, but it's no longer reaching his eyes. "You did wish me to become better—kinder and merciful, no?"

" _Don't_ ," says Nate, grasping at Eric's arm, with complete and reckless abandon. He can barely lift his hand, and the chain around his wrist stretches taut and pulls back at his shoulder, but neither really registers. "None of this—whatever you think this would accomplish—none of this will give you _what you want_."

In all those years lived, how could he not have seen that, found that? Nate, faltering between desperation and despair, wants to ask, _demand_ , Eric to see the futility of his own actions, one that he so freely accuses humans of.

With a light touch, Eric removes Nate's hand from his arm. "Oh, I disagree wholeheartedly. We can also test that assertion, if you like."

Nate stares at the proprietary, possessive bend of Eric's hand that remains over Nate's wrist. Incongruously, nonsensically gentle, for him.

The question remains. _Why_. Why, then.

Once, Nate thought Eric an epitome of a five-year-old boy who who'd tear apart a butterfly's wings just because he could. But Eric no longer looks at him with such fixed disinterest, and there are moments that betray something else.

With that schism, now the real danger feels like something else entirely.

"Eric." The name that Nate speaks for the first time he's heard it—it sounds foreign, incomprehensible on his lips. Eric stills. "I'm not what you want."

Eric's smile slips. "What would you know of what I want?"

One flick of Eric's hand, and Nate's slammed back on the bed, bleeding from the split lips and struggling to breathe.

Eric pulls him up until he's pinned against the headboard. The light has dimmed in Eric's eyes, and even a mere shadow of his ever discomforting merriment has receded into darkness. When Eric's teeth tear open Nate's neck, there's no hint of usual hunger, nor thirst, not even want—only brisk and unremitting violence. Eric's anger has only ever felt cold, shivery, but now it's scalding and punishing at every turn.

"I wonder," Eric says, and his grip that wrenches Nate's head toward him is casually callous. "Did you imagine him in my stead?"

The pain from Nate's neck dangerously expands just as the edges of his vision start to blur and fade. He feels worn and thin, too hollow and fractured even to summon justifiable hatred to sustain himself.

_It's been an honor, Nate._

There's a bone-aching loss that feels like grief.

 _You should've told him_ , Nate thinks. Absent. Drifting. Thoughts without an anchor. _That last time, you should've found words to say—_

Nate hardly notices his own hand reaching out, tracing the edge of Eric's face, with the improbably familiar eyes that only seem dead, even with their unremitting callousness. He hardly notices how Eric has stilled at the touch.

_It's been an honor, Nate._

_You should've said—what?_

"I wish," Nate tells Eric, his finger leaving a trail of blood on the pale, inhuman face— _out, out, damned spot_ —"you could've kept your sunlight."

Abruptly, Eric pushes away.

And Nate has just a moment to recall the desert—haunted and desolate, searing and bright—and the cool blue gaze he could never fail to meet with his own, before everything is edged out by darkness.

* * *

_"Get rid of your plaything, Eric. I mean it. Or I'll do it for you."_

Eric contemplates hanging up the phone right then, but even at her most irritating, Nan Flanagan wouldn't risk the fragile truce between them over a trivial matter, and nor would he. He still harbors that much loyalty to their Queen and their kind—and Nan, he can at least acknowledge, shares that much in common with him.

"Nan," he says coolly, a single and last warning.

" _Eric_ ," she counters just as coolly, but her voice thaws a little. _"We got the police to back off for now, but we can_ not _afford another incident like this and you know it. Didn't we just agree on that a few days ago? Get that troublesome human to forget and let him loose before they dig into this any further."_

Pam has left open a sample bottle of True Blood on the counter. Eric pushes it over to the edge of the table with his finger. "Glamour doesn't work on him."

That gives Nan a pause, but not for long. _"You're certain you've tried hard enough? Oh, very well. Kill him, then. Just make sure they never find the body."_

Eric has seen the recalcitrant, tenacious calm vanish from the human's eyes, at last. He's seen those eyes shake with the tangible and palpable fear that Eric should've found in them in the first place, when he'd walked into the alleyway and first seen the Good Samaritan, who brazenly regarded him with a steady and unyielding gaze.

It should be bewildering, then, that there's so little pleasure to be found in attaining that moment.

_Kill him, then._

Eric curbs the desire to smother and extinguish, and imagines himself being eminently kind.

He imagines his own hand over that delicate neck, with the blood red stains stark against the pallor of the human skin. Imagines watching the eyelashes dip, deceivingly fragile and hiding a fine filigree of emotions, in eyes wide and expressive, sharp and weary. Eric can imagine being kind, caressing that pliable human mouth for the last time, stifling the pained gasps with his own lips and tasting the drops of tears spilling from the lashes—dragging out the ragged edge of the human's last breath and watching until the thin human fingers go lax, unmoving and final.

Anyone else, human or otherwise, would caterwaul at every moment in fear and agony, begging for mercy; this human would only stare back with a look that would settle on Eric like it has edges and weight, so exhaustingly resolute and foolishly compassionate even until the end. But it would still end, as all do. The exceptional decayed to the mundane, to the predicted end to all things living.

The same, unremarkable ending that Eric has given to all things he's killed.

 _"Eric."_ Nan's voice flattens, sensing his distractions. _"We've lobbied, and lobbied fiercely, to get this far. I know I don't have to remind you how hard everyone, including you, worked to get here, so we could be out in the open, to be free as all humans. Why would you do this unless you want to put our entire operations at risk?"_

With a push, Eric tips the bottle of True Blood over the precipice. It teeters precariously, straddling between the tangible and the air. "Do you imagine, then, this was a deliberate act on my part?"

That silences Nan Flannigan for another moment. _"If you wanted to sabotage this, Eric, there would've been more effective ways. You're rash, but not entirely without a wit or sense. One can only imagine this human of yours must be diverting your attention. It's fine—it can happen even to the best of us."_

It's just as easy for Eric to imagine himself being far less than kind.

He can imagine holding the human by the head and forcing him to drink Eric's blood, blotting out the sun from those obstinate eyes and granting them only the permanent sunset. And strategically, the human _would_ make a brilliant addition to Eric's kind. Cautious but undaunted. Intelligent, even wise. Vampires have turned humans for far less practical reasons. And watching the human's ever imprudent compassion replaced by hate would be—riveting. Uniquely thrilling. An unmatched amusement.

_The moment you succeed, what you'd have in your hands would be someone else—_

Likely, but no matter, because nothing lasts, in the end. Time is ravenous and intent, its whims more avaricious than Eric could ever be, and it always draws swift and near to the wisest and quietest of Eric's kind, in the way it does not for those who remain frivolous and vain. In the face of time, the clear eyes will dim and grow despondent, haunted; the thin fingers will go lax and wither. Just as it has for—

_There's no salvation left for our kind, Eric._

—Godric.

But until then, there will remain the look that settles on Eric like it has edges and weight.

_None of this will get you what you want._

There will remain the quiet that Eric can hardly find anywhere else.

_I'm not what you want._

Eric snatches the bottle of True Blood and smashes it in his hand.

 _"Look, honestly, I don't care why and how you do what you do,"_ says Nan, voice shrill with vexation _. "Just get rid of him and destroy all evidence before it actually becomes a problem for all of us. Or, I will."_ A pause, then: _"You_ are _capable of managing this little task yourself, aren't you, Eric? If it really that difficult to find another plaything, I'll send you one giftwrapped. On the house. You'll never be bored, I promise you."_

"Nan, always a pleasure," says Eric.

_"Eric, seriously—"_

Eric hangs up.

Several pieces of glass remain embedded in his hand. A strong whiff of chemicals from the blood, disagreeable and unappealing, slowly diffuses in the air.

"Right-o," says Pam, from somewhere behind Eric. "We're closing early. Get everyone out."

"But—" starts Chow.

" _Now_."

"Uh, yes, Pam."

Eric barely hears them. He watches the blood from his fingertips trickle across his palm, pooling slowly on the floor. He watches his hand that could've snapped the human's neck and be done with it, could've permanently silenced his voice at any given point in time, far before—

_I wish you could've kept your—_

Eric squeezes his hand into a fist. Glass crunches, nicking and grating against his skin.

Rhapsodizing over taking a life—of _one mere human._

How the great, savage Eric Northman has fallen.

Another hand reaches out and lifts his hand. Pam, wordless, picks out the pieces of glass from his hand, one by one. The skin sizzles and hisses, flesh instantly healing over blood.

"Done," she says, level and even, and in the voice of his child is something that he hasn't heard in centuries, something that almost resembles a concern. "Orders, Eric?" she asks, almost as light as she should be.

Eric withdraws his hand and wipes the repugnant blood on the marble. There are no scars on his hand.

No single mark that might even hint at his foibles.

"That human doppelgänger," Eric tells her. "Invite him over properly."

Pam doesn't waste time asking questions, like _Are you sure that's wise?_ "Consider it done," she says, brisk and crisp, and turns on her heels.

And Eric, his fingers drumming on the marble counter glassy with blood, contemplates the look that settles on him like it has edges and weight.

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I have no excuse. I'm sorry if you were hoping for the conclusion to the story. I kept rewriting this section and changing my mind that finally just decided to post and commit to a version. If you're still following this story, thank you! The next one will be the last chapter, plus epilogue, but honestly, with my track record...


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